Detalles del proyecto
Description
Scientific Objective and Rationale: Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed male cancer. Treatment of patients with advanced-stage disease relies on hormone-like drugs that target a single, precise region of the androgen receptor (AR), a key protein in the disease. The AR is a good prostate cancer drug target because experience has shown that treatment with the hormone-mimicking drugs frequently leads to a significant remission of the disease. After awhile, however, the cancer comes back because the androgen receptor in the tumor changes to be resistant to the hormone-like drugs. Our goal is to circumvent this resistant state. To do this, we plan to develop new types of drugs that target the androgen receptor in a completely different region. This other region of the AR is more tricky to design drugs for and was overlooked for many years because of these difficulties. But because it also changes less frequently and is more crucial for the AR to function, these new drugs have great potential to continue working long after a prostate cancer has become resistant to the conventional hormone-like drugs. We have candidate compounds that appear to target this new region of the AR.
Applicability: The outcome of this research has the potential to help all patients who suffer from prostate cancer, and especially those who have become resistant to conventional hormone-mimicking therapies, because it may lead to treatments that can be used to prolong their state of remission. But chemicals cannot just be tested on people without knowing how they work, without finding a useful dose, and without identifying any side effects may be present. Our goal, therefore, is to lay a sound scientific foundation for the development of these new types of drugs. By the end of the 3-year grant period we expect that one or more lead compounds emerging from this work would be ready for clinical trials.
Advancing the field of prostate cancer: If successful, the outcome of this work would be a proof of the principle that the AR could be targeted for therapy in nonconventional ways. It would likely spur many other groups to target new regions of this protein, and lead to a wider variety of potential treatments that might significantly extend the lives of patients suffering from advanced stage disease.
Estado | Activo |
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Fecha de inicio/Fecha fin | 1/1/13 → … |
Financiación
- Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs: $275,161.00
Keywords
- Investigación sobre el cáncer
- Oncología
- Ciencias sociales (todo)