A perfect score for Prostate Cancer research

The National Cancer Institute, a branch of the U. S. National Institutes of Health, has awarded an $11.3 million, five-year grant to the Pacific Northwest Prostate Cancer SPORE (SPORE is short for Specialized Programs of Research Excellence), group which consists of investigators from the Vancouver Prostate Cancer Centre of Excellence, and from the Fred Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle. This SPORE group aims to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying the development and progression of prostate cancer and to develop new therapeutic strategies that use precision-medicine approaches to improve survival and reduce treatment-related side effects.
Congratulations to: Dr. Christopher Ong
Dr. Christopher Ong (General Surgery) and Dr. Martin Gleave (Urological Sciences) lead 1 of the 5 projects in this group grant. Their project Targeting SEMA3C in castration-resistant prostate cancer is focused on defining and targeting pathways that drive advanced prostate cancer. The goal is to define the mechanisms of a gene called SEMA3C in promoting resistance to androgen-deprivation therapy in an effort to develop and test a new therapy that targets the SEMA3C pathway in a preclinical model and, ultimately, in a phase 1 human clinical trial. Their project ranked most highly of the 5 projects and was given a score of 1.0…..which is a perfect score in the NIH system
posted : 2013-September-23