We challenged the prostate cancer research community to really raise their game. We wanted to see something we’d never seen before, and to see projects that clearly brought a new approach to the problem. We weren’t disappointed. Over a day of intense discussion and debate, the awards below were ranked most highly and recommended for funding by our expert Research Advisory Committee.
Dr Clarkson and his team will test the ability of a new drug developed in their lab to kill prostate cancer stem cells. Dr Clarkson believes that these are the cells responsible for driving cancer spread even after surgery or radiotherapy in men with high-risk localised prostate cancers.
This project aims to develop and test a brand new class of drug that works by disrupting the genetic instructions produced by a cancer promoting gene that’s inappropriately activated in over 50 per cent of prostate cancers.
Dr Zwacka and his team will look into how well, and how safely, a cancer-killing protein loaded into adult stem cells can infiltrate and kill prostate cancer cells in the main prostate tumour and elsewhere in the body.
This project looks into whether bacteria may be involved in prostate cancer development thus presenting opportunities to halt or prevent cancer development through the use of antibiotics.
This project looks into how patients respond to therapy with the aim of matching each individual patient to the best available treatment.
This team will investigate a potential new treatment for men with a mutation in a gene called PTEN, which is common in hormone resistant advanced prostate cancer.
This project looks to develop a tool to work out which men need additional radiotherapy treatment for cancer that has spread outside the prostate to the pelvic lymph nodes.
This team is looking to develop new drug targets to prevent, delay or reverse advanced prostate cancer.