Finding the men most likely to benefit from a new prostate cancer treatment

Grant information

Researcher: Dr Kelly Coffey
Institution: Newcastle University
Award: £363,881
Reference: RIA19-ST2-005

Why did we fund this project?

• Prostate cancer cells rely on a complex network of signals to grow and survive. Kinases are a specific family of proteins that play an important role in controlling these signals.

• When certain kinases become overactive, they can help prostate cancer grow and develop. 

• Drugs that block these overactive kinases already exist. The challenge is identifying which kinase is driving an individual man's cancer, as this can vary from man to man and may influence which drug could work best. 

• We funded Dr Kelly Coffey and her team to develop and validate a new laboratory test that could identify whether a man's prostate cancer is being driven by a particular overactive kinase. 

What did the team do?

• The team first refined and optimised their new test to make sure it could reliably answer their research questions. 

• They then used the test on different types of prostate cancer samples to understand how it could provide the most useful information. 

• Kelly and her team also investigated how the samples responded to different kinase-blocking drugs, based on the kinase activity identified by the test. 

What did the team achieve?

• The team showed that their test could provide important information about the levels and activity of kinases in prostate cancer samples. 

• Crucially, they also found that samples from different men could respond differently to the same kinase-blocking drug, even when the same kinase was overactive. 

• The team also developed a range of laboratory tools and tests that can support further research into kinases and drugs that target them. 

What does this mean for men?

• This research brings us a step closer to a more personalised approach to treating prostate cancer, where treatment could be guided by the particular kinase activity in a man's cancer. 

• More research is needed before this approach could lead to new treatment options for men, but the tools and knowledge developed through this project provide an important foundation for further work. 

• Kelly and her team are continuing to analyse the data from this project, with the aim of learning as much as possible about how kinase activity could be used to guide future treatments.