Project No. 11
Investigating why damaging the DNA inside cancer cells only works as a treatment for some prostate cancer patients
DNA damaging agents (DDAs) work by damaging genes in the cancer cells which leads to their death, but not all cancers can be treated with DDAs. This project aims to understand why DDAs only work in some patients.
Dr Dev will create a new tool called ProCASP which will be used to change DNA in prostate cancer cells. He can then see which genetic changes help DDAs kill cancer and which changes stop DDAs from working.
Dr Dev will begin to create ProCASP and use it to identify biomarkers and new targets for prostate cancer treatment. In the future, ProCASP could be developed for use in the clinic to predict patients' responses to treatment.
DNA damaging agents (DDAs) work by damaging genes in the cancer cells which leads to their death, but not all cancers can be treated with DDAs. This project aims to understand why DDAs only work in some patients.
Dr Dev will create a new tool called ProCASP which will be used to change DNA in prostate cancer cells. He can then see which genetic changes help DDAs kill cancer and which changes stop DDAs from working.
Dr Dev will begin to create ProCASP and use it to identify biomarkers and new targets for prostate cancer treatment. In the future, ProCASP could be developed for use in the clinic to predict patients' responses to treatment.
May 2020
University of Cambridge
£100,000/year
November 2021
DNA writes the code which makes our cells, and makes you you. Unfortunately, DNA is as fundamental to cancer as it is to life. DNA damaging agents (DDA) can be used to treat prostate cancer. They can damage genes leading to the death of cancer cells, but at the minute, doctors can’t predict which cancers will be killed by DDAs and which won’t before they start treating a patient. This project will create an exciting new tool called ProCASP, which will be used in the lab to increase our understanding of DDAs and which cancers they are effective at killing. ProCASP will be used to change DNA in prostate cancer cells taken from patients. Then, the researchers can see which genetic changes help DDAs kill cancer, and which changes stop DDAs from working. ProCASP should be better than other techniques used for growing human prostate cells outside the body as it captures more of the complexity of human cancer than other tools used to study cancer in the lab. This research will help us find patterns in DNA that can be used to identify patients who will benefit from DDA treatment, could help us discover brand new ways of treating prostate cancer, and ProCASP will keep the tools used in the lab directly relevant to patients.
Check back soon to find out more about Dr Harveer Dev’s research project!
