Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Western countries is and it is the second leading cause of cancer deaths. The major clinical challenge for prostate cancer treatment is targeting the most aggressive disease spread to other parts of the body and that is resistant to therapies. Recent studies have shown that one fourth of patients treated with hormonal therapy develop a treatment-induced neuroendocrine disease that it is very lethal with a survival rate of less than a year after diagnosis. This program is based on a new discovery of a protein that is exclusively upregulated in highly aggressive, treatment-resistant prostate cancer patients with neuroendocrine disease. The aims of the project are to study the biology, role and mechanism of this protein and also to target its activity. This project has a great potential to result in a new approach for the diagnosis and/or therapy for highly lethal prostate cancer and to treat this incurable disease.

2019

2024