The Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) has given an Idea Development Award to Dr. Hui Zhang, associate professor of genetics at the School of Medicine, for study of a mouse model of prostate cancer progression.
The total amount of the award is $613,125.
The PCRP supports basic and clinical research with Idea Development Awards intended to support creative research in prostate cancer and to capture novel ideas in their early stages of development.
Zhang and his group have created a genetic mouse model for prostate cancer that will allow them to study several pathways of tumor progression and the relationship between dietary and genetic contributing factors.
"Establishing these mouse models for prostate cancer should provide information on the interaction between different pathways that are implicated in prostate cancer," says Zhang. "The mouse model also can be used for testing many anti-cancer drugs for the treatment of prostate cancer."
Prostate cancer arises from genetic alterations that cause either overexpression of oncogenes or loss of tumor suppressors -- promoting abnormal cell growth or cell division. The tumor suppressor protein p27, which keeps normal prostate cells from dividing, is absent or low in malignant prostate cancers, where it is broken down more rapidly than in normal cells. Zhang found that this process is controlled by SKP2, a protein that is expressed at a high level in prostate cancer and many other cancers.
The clinical marker pair of reduced p27 and increased SKP2 can be used to determine the stage and prognosis of prostate cancer. The relationship to other known tumor markers will be studied.
It has long been known that there is a very low incidence of prostate cancer in Asians living in Asia, while Asians living in the United States show the same incidence rate as other American ethnic populations. Zhang will use the mouse model to begin to understand dietary factors that may play a role in tumor initiation or progression.
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