Gene therapy
The future of prostate cancer treatment?
Thanks to your support, a research project is making waves in the search for a cure for prostate cancer. Research into prostate cancer has always suffered from under-funding. But with your support, we’re making real progress. In fact, a new programme that looks at gene therapy may pave the way to a cure for prostate cancer.
The main drug treatments for advanced prostate cancer – hormone therapy – work by blocking the effect of androgens (the male hormones) on cancer cells. But as the disease progresses, a new type of cancer cell emerges which grows without androgens. This means that, over time, hormone therapy becomes less effective. This is the area that Dr Simak Ali and Dr Laki Buluwela at Imperial College have been researching – and where they’ve been making exciting progress.
Scientists have long understood that androgens stimulate prostate cancer cells to grow and divide by activating certain genes. Dr Ali and Dr Buluwela have devised a new method for preventing these genes from being activated – and they believe this could form the basis of a new way to treat advanced prostate cancer.
Switching the genes off
There are several systems used by cells to activate genes. One of the most powerful is called Histone Deacetylation. The molecules which make up our genes are normally found wrapped around proteins called histones. By using a process called deacetylation, the cells can wrap the genes and histones so tightly together, that it becomes impossible to activate the genes.
Dr Ali and Dr Buluwela have created a system which should be able to deactylate the histones that carry the genes responsible for causing prostate cancer cells to grow and divide. This system is called Gene Inactivation by Chromatin Engineering – or Gene ICE.
The results gathered so far confirm that Gene ICE works in principle. However, it now needs to be tested on prostate tumours in the laboratory.
Dr Ali and Dr Buluwela are at an exciting point in their research. And with continued support from people like you, there’s every chance their work could have a profound effect – helping thousands of men throughout the UK fight prostate cancer more effectively.
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