Characterising prostate cancer cells in blood

In a nutshell

This project will study cells, called circulating tumour cells (CTCs) that escape from the main bulk of a prostate tumour and circulate around the body in the blood. The researcher will see whether the amounts of certain proteins in the CTCs can predict how the patient will respond to hormone treatment.

Why we funded it

The standard treatment for advanced prostate cancer is hormone therapy. Responses to hormone therapy vary from person to person, but at the moment we don’t have a good way to predict how well it will work for any given patient.

The ability to predict those who are not likely to respond well would save these patients from experiencing unnecessary side effects and give clinicians more time to find the right combination of treatments to give them the best chance of controlling the cancer.

This research will focus on a group of proteins called transcription factors, and the researchers will investigate whether the levels of certain transcription factors in CTCs can predict how well a patient will respond to hormone treatment. 

Grant information

Institution - Newcastle University
Researcher - Miss Alice Hartley
Grant award - £53,040
Duration - 2013-2014
Reference - RCS12-01 Hartley