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Prostate Cancer Support Group Burnaby

A made-in-B.C. prostate cancer drug entering clinical trials

12/14/2015

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​The BC Cancer Foundation is looking for advanced prostate cancer patients that can participate  in a phase one 
 clinical trial. The Canadian trial will be run by Dr. Kim Chi, who is an Associate Professor at the UBC Division of Medical Oncology.

This is the culmination of 17 years work and over $2.6 million dollars of funding to develop a totally new way of attacking prostate cancer.


A prostate cancer drug developed by researchers at the BC Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia is entering human clinical trials. The drug is specifically designed to target and shut down metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (m-CRPC) when other treatments have failed.
“Today represents a significant milestone as we witness the fruits of our labour in the lab move to the clinic to potentially help men facing metastatic prostate cancer,” said Dr. Marianne Sadar, Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency and Professor in the UBC Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. “We faced one in 1000 odds in developing a drug that would prove to be a candidate for patient trials.”
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Over a decade in the making, the drug EPI-506 is the first to target the ‘back end’ of the androgen receptor protein, called the N-terminal domain. The androgen receptor drives most prostate cancer cells and makes them sensitive to androgen hormones, such as testosterone.


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'Suicide' gene therapy kills prostate cancer cells

12/14/2015

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​One problem with trying to use the immune system to destroy cancer cells is that the body does not recognise these deadly cells as dangerous because they have evolved from normal healthy cells.
This is why, unlike an infection, the immune system does not destroy these cancer cells.
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By using a virus to carry the gene therapy into the tumour cells, the cells self-destruct, which then alerts the immune system to launch a massive attack.

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A new gene therapy technique is able to modify prostate cancer cells so that a patient's body attacks and kills them, US scientists have discovered. 
The technique causes the tumour cells in the body to self-destruct, giving it the name 'suicide gene therapy'.

Their research found a 20% improvement in survival in patients with prostate cancer five years after treatment. This new research genetically modifies cancer cells so that they signal a patient's own immune system to attack the cells.

​Read more here
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    This blog is put together by a member of the Prostate Cancer Burnaby Support Group.

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