Elucidating and Treating Chromosome 1q (MCL-1) Amplified Prostate Cancer

New treatments for lethal prostate cancer Current drugs available for treating lethal prostate cancer (PC) eventually stop working. This is because PC cells become resistant. Approximately 16% of patients have a certain rogue gene pattern, which leads to high levels of some proteins. I hypothesise these increased protein levels may cause the drug resistance. I will test each such protein in PC models and patient tumour samples to find out which ones most lead to PC cell growth. I will then identify existing or novel drugs that block these proteins from working, thereby stopping PC cells from growing. Finally, we will test how these drugs could treat patients with this gene pattern. These studies will help identify novel therapeutic strategies to improve the outcome of lethal PC patients. This approach could also work with other common cancers: breast and lung cancer cells, for instance, often show the same gene pattern.