Studying how diverse prostate cancers respond to treatment in real time

Grant information

Reference - RIA15-ST2-022
Researcher - Professor Norman Maitland
Institution - University of York
Duration - 2016-2019
Award - £536,625

Why did we fund this project?

• Every man’s prostate cancer is different, each having a unique ‘fingerprint’ of characteristics that can affect how the cancer grows, spreads and responds to treatments.
• Researchers usually test new treatments by observing how effective they are at treating special prostate cancer cells (called 'cell lines') that are easy to grow in the lab.
• However these cell lines don’t represent the complexity of prostate cancers in different men, leading to the development of treatments that work for some men and not others.
• Additionally, the cancer cells are typically only studied at two time points, before and after the treatment. This can miss important changes that occur whilst the treatment is given.
• In this project, the team aimed to develop an array of new prostate cancer cell lines that better reflect the complexity of prostate cancers in different men.
• The team also investigated whether using an advanced ‘time-lapse’ microscope could identify changes the prostate cancer cells as they happened during the treatment.
• This work could lead to the development of better treatments that work for more men.

What did the team do?

• The team generated new prostate cancer cell lines that could be grown in the lab. 
• These new cell lines had a wide range of different characteristics, to better represent the differences between  prostate cancers in men.
• The team tested a number of different prostate cancer treatments on these cell lines. They also used the time-lapse microscope to study the changes occurring in the cell lines as they were treated in real time.

What did the team achieve?

• The team found that different cell lines with different characteristics responded differently to treatments. For example, a treatment called docetaxel was much more effective at treating some of the cell lines than others.
• By using the time-lapse microscope, the team also identified the changes that occurred in the cells as they were treated in real time.
• Interestingly, they identified that a small number of prostate cancer cells undergo changes that allow them to evade treatments such as docetaxel. This is important as these cells could act as 'seeds' that allow cancer to come back after treatment.
• This is an important clue as to why some men see their prostate cancer's return, and the team are investigating these seeds further to try and understand how to target them with new treatments.

What does this mean for men?

• The team have created a range of prostate cancer cell lines, and have shown they can be used to test treatments.
• This will help researchers drive the development of better treatments that work for more men.
• The team have used their advanced time-lapse microscope to identify key changes when cancer cells are treated. This gained important insight into how treatments work, and why cancer can sometimes come back after treatment.