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Prostate Cancer Canada and Movember partner to fund ten research projects breaking new ground
Toronto, ON – September 16, 2019
Canadian prostate cancer research leaders are receiving nearly $2 million to accelerate discoveries to save and improve men’s lives. Prostate Cancer Canada and Movember awarded the funds through the Discovery Grant program to support new and innovative research.
“The future has never looked better for men with prostate cancer, but there is still work to do. We can’t stop as long as an estimated 11 men are lost every day to this disease,” says Dr. Stuart Edmonds, Vice President, Research, Health Promotion and Survivorship, Prostate Cancer Canada. “Supporting these discoveries opens new avenues of exploration to save and improve more lives, by creating new treatments and better ways to detect and manage the disease.”
At Movember, a substantial amount of money raised during our campaign is allocated to partners like Prostate Cancer Canada for investment into projects like The Discovery Grant Program. Through this project, we are helping to support the best scientists in the country, enabling them to test ideas that could prove to be groundbreaking from diagnosis, to treatment and survivorship,” says Karli Kirkpatrick, Director of Marketing, Movember Canada. “We’re proud to support work that gives hope to men and their families facing prostate cancer.
Tracing cancer’s path from innocuous to lethal
Dr. Martin Gleave (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
What happens to a cancer cell when it stops responding to hormone therapy? How does it change, and what can that tell us? Using thousands of prostate cancer cells from patients, Dr. Gleave’s team will examine the changes the cells go through when hormone therapy begins, ends, and throughout treatment. By identifying if similar changes occur in different patients’ cells, Dr. Gleave hopes to discover common genes that could help doctors better manage patient care.
Dr. Gleave says: “We expect this research will yield novel insights into why prostate cancer progresses and becomes resistant, and could give doctors important information about which treatments will work best for their patients.”
Designing gold to seek and destroy prostate cancer
Dr. Larry Goldenberg (University of British Columbia, Vancouver)
On the heels of an explosion in the research of “seek and destroy” cancer treatment, Dr. Goldenberg is taking it one step further. There are now ways to use radiation that targets and kills cancer cells with minimal damage to the surrounding, healthy tissue. Unfortunately, this type of treatment is not well focussed for prostate cancer. Often, healthy cells in the salivary glands, kidneys, adrenal glands and other areas are damaged, resulting in significant side effects. For the first time, a specific part of prostate cancer cells is being studied to identify where radiation should be targeted. Dr. Goldenberg is designing a “gold” nanoparticle that would deliver radiation directly to that area of the cell, sparing damage to healthy tissue and reducing side effects for men receiving radiation treatment.
Dr. Goldenberg says: “Optimistically, this research would allow us to significantly control metastatic prostate cancer, and perhaps one day destroy cancer in the prostate before it has a chance to spread.”