Inhibiting Prostate Cancer Cell Motility
Abstract
Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death for men living in the United States. Death results because the cancer first moves throughout the prostate gland and then throughout the body. Once the cancer is in other parts of the body, it starts to grow, causing damage to critical organs, and ultimately causing death. If prostate cancer has not spread, it can be cured with treatments such as surgery or radiation. However, once prostate cancer has spread to distant areas of the body, it will respond to treatment for a short time, but it cannot be cured and will cause death. While several new drugs aimed at helping men with advanced prostate cancer have recently been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past 4 years, each prolongs life by only 3-4 months. The drugs traditionally used to treat prostate cancer work by killing the cancer cells, but they tend not to be selective (that is, they kill both healthy and cancer cells), and as a result they are very toxic. Furthermore, cancer cells quickly become resistant to drugs that are designed to kill them. Essentially, the main effect of all drugs used to treat prostate cancer is aimed at killing prostate cancer cells. While this is very important, it is just as important to consider that if therapy could stop prostate cancer cells from moving, then it would delay and stop prostate cancer from causing death. Our group has been tackling this problem for many years. Our group is led by Dr. Bergan. He is a medical oncologist who specializes in prostate cancer. He has a long established track record of moving new forms of therapy from the bench into the clinic, where they can benefit people. This is very difficult to do. Further, our group was the first to successfully target pathways in humans that stimulate the development of cancer metastasis. We accomplished this in prostate cancer. Working for the past 5 years with experts in chemistry, our group has together synthesized, discovered, and patented a drug specifically designed to inhibit human prostate cancer metastasis. That drug is called KBU2046. We have completed a comprehensive set of studies that together demonstrate that KBU2046 is highly potent, highly specific, non-toxic, and can be taken by mouth in a pill form. Our goal is to take KBU2046 into human clinical trials. Our work indicates that KBU2046 represents a new and effective type of drug. Further, because KBU2046 works completely differently from existing drugs, it can be combined with them, and together they will be even more effective. In order to take KBU2046 into human trials, we need to repeat many of the studies we have already conducted, such as synthesizing KBU2046 and testing its toxicity in animals. Importantly, the FDA requires that these studies be performed by independent laboratories that specialize in doing work for the FDA. These studies are very expensive. We are submitting this application to pay for those studies so that we can then test KBU2046 in men with prostate cancer. Who will KBU2046 help? It will help people whose cancer has already spread. It will help these people by stopping that cancer from further moving into and destroying the organs it has already spread to. For example, it will stop it from destroying bone, and thus stop prostate cancer from causing bone fractures and compression of the spinal cord. Importantly, since prostate cancer spreads to many organs throughout the body, in addition to bone, it will have a similar effect on all these organs. If you stop prostate cancer from destroying critical organs, people will live longer. Clearly, this is very beneficial. If you combine KBU2046 (i.e., stopping cancer cells from moving) with hormone or chemotherapy (killing cancer), then both therapies can help each other and the benefits multiply. KBU2046 will also help people whose cancer has not yet spread. People who have localized prostate cancer, esp
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 04, 2016
- Source ID
- W81XWH1510527
Entities
People
- Raymond Bergan
Organizations
- Oregon Health & Science University
- United States Army