Finding the sweet spot for treatment

Grant information

Institution – Newcastle University
Researcher – Dr Emma Scott
Grant award - £299,443
Duration of funding – 2020-2025
Status - Complete
Reference – TLD-PF19-002

Why did we fund this project?

• Immune therapies are treatments that help the immune system recognise and kill cancer cells. They have been very effective for some types of cancer, but they have had limited success for men with prostate cancer.

• This is partly because prostate cancer cells can hide in plain sight, blending in amongst normal healthy cells - just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  

• Dr Emma Scott wanted to understand the sheep’s clothing that helps prostate cancer cells hide from the immune system.

• Emma previously found that sugars may be key. The outside of normal prostate cells are covered with sugars, and prostate cancer cells mimic this sugary coating as a form of camouflage. Emma now wanted to find out if there are weaknesses in this camouflage that could be targeted.

What did the researcher do?

• This Travelling Prize Fellowship supported Emma to visit Stanford University (USA), a world-leading research institution, to learn a technique that shows how sugars on cancer cells effect how the cells interact with other cells in the body - a technique known only to a handful of researchers across the world. 

• Then, back in the UK, Emma used this highly specialised technique to study how the sugars covering prostate cancer cells interact specifically with immune cells, and whether the sugars help prostate cancer to hide from immune cells.  

What did the researcher achieve? 

• Emma discovered specific sugars in large amounts only on prostate cancer cells.

• Excitingly, using her highly specialised technique, Emma found how these specific sugars help prostate cancer cells to hide from immune cells that would normally kill them.

• Now, Emma is working with a team of collaborators to test new drugs that block this sugary communication– so the immune system cells can go back to killing the cancer cells.

How will this benefit men?

• There is an urgent need for new ways to treat men with advanced prostate cancer as current treatments are limited and often fail.

• Importantly, this research has identified new drugs targets that could help to stop prostate cancer hiding itself from the immune system.

• Emma and her collaborators are now testing whether a combination of drugs that block these new targets and immune therapy drugs could become a completely new and effective treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer.