A family of proteins has shown promising signs as a potential new target for prostate cancer treatment, an Adelaide-based study has found.
Thanks to funding from Australian Prostate Cancer and parent charity The Hospital Research Foundation Group, Dr Maggie Centenera has identified a group of proteins that could become novel treatment targets.
The discovery was made while Dr Centenera, who is based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute with the University of Adelaide, was working to identify potential biomarkers for another promising drug that is currently undergoing clinical trials.
Dr Centenera said when the function of these proteins was blocked, it prevented the cancer cells from dividing and growing, just as effectively as the drug itself if not better.
“That was exciting because we realised that not only had we found a potential biomarker, but a new therapeutic target,” she said.
“It is not what we were expecting to see, we were just exploring what function the proteins might have in prostate cancer. This is the exciting thing about science, things show up that you weren’t expecting.
“It was one of those serendipitous moments because we might have found a new drug target that could be more specific with less side effects.”
Prostate cancer requires testosterone to grow, so current therapies work by blocking the hormone to stop the tumor from growing.
But over time the cancer can develop a resistance which causes the treatment to become ineffective, so finding new therapies is an area of urgent need.
Dr Centenera said the next steps would be to collect preliminary data to validate the findings before conducting drug development and further trials.
“This is a great outcome, if we hadn’t have done this study, we may never have found this new target,” she said.
