In 2023, Dr Jennifer Munkley, Dr Ning Wang and Dr Kirsty Hodgson successfully completed their PCR project. They discovered that special sugars, glycans, which surround prostate cancer cells just as feathers surround birds, make tumours grow very fast and makes them more likely to spread to bone. They have shown that using drugs to block these glycans could clip prostate cancer’s wings.
Completed Research Projects
Find out more about some of the research projects we have funded in the past and the progress they have made for people affected by prostate cancer.
PTEN: Finding the off switch
Dr Jorge de la Rosa and Alex Hart
Dates: November 2019- April 2024
Location: University of Cambridge
Amount: £422,258
April 2024 marked the successful completion of Dr Jorge de la Rosa and Alex Hart’s PCR project. The team have developed cutting-edge gene-editing techniques and used these to identify the genetic mutations that drive the spread of prostate cancer alongside the loss of the tumour suppressor gene PTEN. The researchers are now comparing their findings to human prostate cancer samples. They hope to uncover shared patterns and to identify new targets for treatment.
PTEN is a tumour suppressor gene which doesn’t work properly in almost half of primary cancers and 100% of advanced cancers.
Lots of other genetic changes happen at the same time that PTEN stops working, but we don’t fully understand what they do
This project developed a new genetic tool to find out what PTEN needs to work, by altering hundreds of genes at once.
As a result, the team have revealed new genetic mechanisms that drive the spread of prostate cancer.
Hormone Therapy: Old Dog, New Tricks
Professor Iain J McEwan, Dr Irene Hunter and Dr Craig Jamieson
Dates: November 2019- November 2023
Location: University of Aberdeen
Amount: £396,710
In 2023, Professor Iain J McEwan, Dr Irene Hunter and Dr Craig Jamieson successfully completed their PCR project. The team have identified potential drug combinations that could make hormone therapy work better and for longer. Developing kinder treatments that continue to work beyond current resistance means that patients will live longer and with fewer side effects. The next step for the researchers is to continue to validate their drug combinations so that in the future they could be tested in clinical trials.
Hormone therapy is one of the main forms of prostate cancer treatment, but it will stop working for nearly all patients.
Hormone therapy works by stopping the androgen receptor (AR) from telling cancer cells to grow. Sometimes, different versions of the AR are made, called AR variants (ARVs) and hormone therapy doesn’t work on these.
This project aimed to find drug combinations that target a different part of the androgen receptor, so that they still work on ARVs. This would mean they still work after resistance to current hormone therapy treatments.
The team have identified potential drug combinations that could be used to target ARVs and make hormone therapy work better and for longer. They will now be testing these combinations, and the hope is that the most effective can be taken forward into clinical trials.
Hormone Therapy: Stopping resistance in its tracks
Dr Luke Gaughan, Dr Laura Walker, Dr Dominic Jones and Ryan Nelson
Dates: January 2020- November 2023
Location: Newcastle University Centre for Cancer
Amount: £406,369
November 2023 marked the successful completion of Dr Luke Gaughan, Dr Laura Walker, Dr Dominic Jones and Ryan Nelson’s PCR project. The team have identified key proteins involved in ARV production and the growth and spread of prostate cancer. The researchers have also begun to conduct further tests to establish whether these proteins have the potential to be drug targets. Once the team have established their potential targets, drugs could be developed that block these proteins, stopping the production of ARVs and preventing resistance to hormone therapy.
Hormone therapy is one of the main forms of prostate cancer treatment, but it will stop working for nearly all patients.
Hormone therapy works by stopping the androgen receptor (AR) from telling cancer cells to grow. Sometimes, different versions of the AR are made, called AR variants (ARVs) and hormone therapy doesn’t work on these.
This project explored how AR variants (ARVs) are made and how to stop this process to keep hormone therapy working for longer.
The team have identified key proteins essential for making ARVs and have begun testing to see if we could target these proteins with drugs to keep hormone therapy working for longer.
Clipping prostate cancer’s wings
Dr Jennifer Munkley, Dr Ning Wang and Dr Kirsty Hodgson
Dates: August 2021- November 2023
Location: Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield
Amount: £273,534
Prostate cancer often spreads to bone. This can be very painful and there is currently no cure.
Glycans are special sugars which coat all cells in the body but are different to sugars found in food.
The team proved that two glycans are important for prostate cancer cells to both grow and spread to the bone, and they have generated proof-of-principle data to show these glycans can be targeted therapeutically. Excitingly, new drugs that block/inhibit glycans have recently been developed and have shown promise for treating other cancers.
They are now testing if cutting-edge glycan-targeting drugs, developed within the last two years, could block prostate cancer spreading to bone.
The Spread of Prostate Cancer
Dr Magali Williamson and Dr Ritu Garg
Dates: May 2018 – August 2023
Location: King’s College London
Amount: £657,498
In 2023, Dr Magali Williamson and Dr Ritu Garg successfully completed their PCR project. The team have shown that PlexinB1 plays a key role in the spread of prostate cancer and has the potential to be a target for new treatments. They have also designed a range of potential treatments that could block PlexinB1 and prevent spread, including antibodies. The next step for the researchers is to continue to test and validate their potential treatments.
Prostate cancer is at its most dangerous when it leaves the prostate and spreads around the body.
PlexinB1 is a protein that is involved in cell movement but it is found in large amounts and often mutated in people with advanced prostate cancer.
This project aimed to identify the role of PlexinB1 in prostate cancer spread and to develop new therapies that can stop this.
The team have shown that PlexinB1 plays a key role in prostate cancer spread and have designed treatments that could block it and prevent spread.
AI: Will my cancer return?
Dr Anna Wilkins and Dr Erik Sahai
Dates: June 2021 – January 2023
Location: Francis Crick Institute, London
Amount: £100,000
In 2023, Dr Anna Wilkins and Dr Erik Sahai successfully completed their PCR project. They proved that their technology can identify patterns which mean someone’s cancer may be more likely to return. This marks a huge step forward for more personalised treatment. The researchers will now take their technology forward to make it work even better and test it using tissue from men with advanced disease.
Sometimes cancer returns following treatment, but doctors cannot predict which will return. If we could predict this, we could make sure that those with a high risk of cancer returning can have their treatment changed to reduce their risk and those with a low risk can avoid overtreatment and associated side effects.
Studies have found patterns in the prostate tissue that can predict whether a cancer is likely to return. Identifying these patterns needs to be done by a highly skilled individual, and it is time consuming and expensive.
Dr Wilkins and Dr Sahai developed computer software to do this automatically and quickly. The researchers used the software to analyse tissue samples collected from patients with prostate cancer during the CHHiP clinical trial. They proved that their software works and can identify patterns associated with prostate cancer returning.
Dr Wilkins and Dr Sahai will now be testing their software further. They will prove that it can analyse a wide range of patient tissue, for example, by testing it using tissue from men who have more advanced prostate cancer. They will also continue to make improvements and make the software work even better.
Immunotherapy for prostate cancer
Dr Christine Galustian
Dates: March 2020 – July 2022
Location: King’s College, London
Amount: £400,000
2022 marked the successful completion of Dr Christine Galustian and Dr Efthymia Papaevangelou’s project. They developed a novel immunotherapy which successfully treated both local tumours and cancer that had spread in mice. As a result of our funding and guidance, this treatment will now be tested in humans in a clinical trial.
Immunotherapy harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. Unfortunately, the biology of the prostate means that it has ben difficult to get immunotherapy to work in prostate cancer.
Drs Galustian, Papaevangelou, and Esteves experimented with a new form of immunotherapy in which they attached an immunity protein called IL-15 to a chemical “tail” which anchored it to the place where it was injected. They hoped this would make it both safer and more effective than other forms of immunotherapy.
The team discovered that when they combined their tailed IL-15 with another drug that affects the immune system, it increased survival in mice by 90% and proved that tumours which were successfully treated with this combination did not grow back. They also gathered important insights into how this therapy affects the biology of the tumour.
Based on their promising results, Dr Galustian has just received funding to develop a clinical trial, to start establishing is this therapy is as safe and effective in humans as it is in mice.
Prostate Cancer Stem Cells
Dr Aamir Ahmed
Dates: May 2018 – September 2021
Location: King’s College, London
Amount: £660,516
2021 marked the conclusion of Dr Aamir Ahmed’s project. This team’s work added to the evidence that Wnt signalling plays an important role in prostate cancer, and worked on an objective and quantitative method to identify new protein biomarkers to help predict prostate cancer prognosis.
Cancer stem cells produce cancer cells and divide continuously to drive tumour growth. They can also survive treatment and restart tumour growth when treatment has stopped.
Wnt signalling is one way your cells communicate and is important in regulating stem cells.
This team tested drugs used in other illnesses to see if they could stop Wnt signalling in prostate cancer.
In addition to his research work, Dr Ahmed has been a good friend to PCR and its supporters, having hosted many lab tours and met many of our supporters and patients.
Modelling Prostate Cancer
Professor Matthew Smalley and Dr Boris Shorning
Dates: October 2017 – January 2021
Location: Cardiff University
Amount: £335,895
2021 marked the successful conclusion of Professor Matt Smalley and Dr Boris Shorning’s project. We are incredibly proud of what they have achieved, and of how well they collaborated with other PCR researchers. The insights they gained into why cancers spread and the potential for an anti-diabetes drug in prostate cancer give the field a clear direction towards new therapies.
Professor Matt Smalley and Dr Boris Shorning developed innovative, world-first models to test the effectiveness of treatments for metastatic prostate cancer, to see if they are good enough and safe enough to move into humans.
Over the three years of this project, they collaborated extensively with other PCR researchers, and played a crucial role in testing compounds developed by other researchers to see if they prevented prostate cancer growth.
They also provided critical insights into the role of Plexin B1, a molecule which controls how cells respond to their environment. They compared two forms of Plexin B1 (normal and mutated), to see which increases metastasis.
They showed that increased levels of the mutated, but not the normal form, stimulates cancer to advance, and, looking at patient data, they discovered that patients with mutated Plexin B1 have worse outcomes compared to patients without Plexin B1 mutations.