News
The CRUK Convergence Centre is a close partner of the ICR and Royal Marsden and our investment in their Drug Development Unit, which harnesses the expertise across academics and clinicians, is central to our mission to change clinical practice. The Centre champions the use of iterative translation, which bridges fundamental and clinical research into a virtuous circle to enable information and discovery to feedback between the clinic and the lab at a fast pace. This results in new life-saving options for patients that fall between therapeutic gaps when the first or second line of treatments fail. Such an example of fast paced innovation is found in our latest centre-supported publication addressing treatment resistance in prostate cancer.
Over time cancers can become resistant to treatment. This is a phenomenon observed in virtually all cancer types when curative treatment is not achieved. The reasons for it are complex and multiple, but it means that drug resistance is one of the biggest challenges to overcome for any cancer treatment. In prostate cancer, hormone therapy is a common treatment often used in combination with other therapies such radiotherapy or surgery. However, resistance occurs often and can lead to progression and hard-to-treat cancers.
Through the support of the Centre, a new drug, known as NXP800, has been identified by researchers at the ICR as a potential treatment for hard-to-treat prostate cancers that are resistant to hormone therapy. The drug is currently in clinical trials for ovarian and bile duct cancer, but new research shows the potential for a broader application.
The study includes data from over 400 prostate cancer samples showing an association between higher levels of heat shock protein and cancer growth, suggesting a potential therapeutic avenue targeting heat shock protein. NXP800 targets the heat shock factor 1 pathway and was shown to significantly slow down tumour growth in the lab.
This research shows how bridging clinical observations and discovery research through convergence science can rapidly offer new treatment options for hard-to-treat cancers.