Why we funded it
With only palliative options for treatment-resistant advanced
prostate cancer this research offers the chance of a treatment for
this disease. This is a novel avenue of research which to date has
been shown to work. The research being undertaken has potential
with a strong chance of reaching clinical trials within the next
3-5 years. This is highly relevant to those men with advanced
prostate cancer who are seeking other options because of treatment
failure.
Scientific title
A bio-inspired gene therapy approach to treat metastatic
prostate cancer
Research project summary
The term 'gene therapy' refers to any approach to cancer
treatment that involves changing the activity of genes within
cancer cells. Cancer gene therapy has been a focus of
research for over a decade and has huge potential for treating
advanced (metastatic) prostate cancer because of the possibility of
targeting tumours wherever they are in the body. To date,
most attempts at cancer gene therapy have not worked because there
has been no effective carrier to transport the gene therapy around
the body and protect it in the bloodstream.
This project will look at an innovative type of carrier system
constructed from the natural building blocks of proteins (amino
acids) that Dr McCarthy believes will overcome this hurdle.
The student working on this project will attempt to use the carrier
to deliver a toxic gene, called iNOS, to prostate cancer cells in
culture and to mouse prostate tumours.
It is hoped that the project will show that this new gene
carrier is stable in blood, does not attract an immune response and
can deliver a gene that is active in cancer cells but not healthy
cells. Although this is a complex and innovative line of
research, every individual component of this gene therapy strategy
has so far been shown to work. This project will put them all
together. At the end of this project the researchers aim to
have produced much of the pre-clinical data necessary to go forward
into early human trials.