Patients with late stage prostate cancer may benefit from hormone therapy (androgen ablation), which removes the main source of fuel to tumor growth by suppressing male hormones (androgens). Unfortunately, patients ultimately become non-responsive to this treatment after a few years, resulting in uncontrolled disease status and patient death. New and more effective treatments must be developed quickly to address this critical issue.

Here are four NFCR scientists whose research is focused on preventing prostate cancer with nutrition, detecting it earlier, unraveling the root causes of prostate cancer metastasis, and developing new and effective treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

Helmut Sies, M.D
Heinrich Heine Universitat in Dusseldorf, Germany
Dietary micronutrient selenium may have prostate tumor-protective capacity

Since 1983, NFCR has been supporting Dr. Helmut Sies, a biochemist and one of the world's leading experts in cancer prevention and nutrition. Micronutrients are necessary vitamins and minerals that are needed in small quantities to keep our body healthy. Dr. Sies has made numerous breakthrough discoveries, such as the micronutrient lycopene found in tomatoes has antioxidant properties-that prevents oxidation or the damage to cells by free-radicals-the largest environmental cause of cancer.

Dr. Sies is now focusing on selenium, an essential micronutrient. Dietary selenium is incorporated into selenoproteins, critical cell proteins that have anti-oxidative functions. The Sies' team will focus on two selenoproteins that research shows have abnormal activity and expression levels in different tumor cells including prostate cancer cells. There is strong evidence that suggests a beneficial impact of selenium for prevention and therapy of prostate cancer as well as colon, lung, and liver cancer. Dr. Sies' research is of high impact as it will characterize the molecular targets of selenium in tumor and cancer cells. This much-needed information will improve protocols for future intervention trials with selenium supplements or selenoproteins. NFCR applauds Dr. Sies' excellent research on cancer prevention and nutrition-that helps to formulate guidelines for cancer researchers and clinical trials and for people to lower their risk of cancer through healthy nutrition.

James Basilion, Ph.D.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio
A New Technology Platform for Early Cancer Detection

Research has shown that prostate cancer, similar to all other cancer types, have cancerous cells that tend to over-produce certain "combinations" of cancer-causing molecules or biomarkers on their cell surface that, together, cause the early progression of abnormal cell growth. The NFCR Center for Molecular Imaging, directed by Dr. James Basilion, is developing the next generation of highly sensitive imaging technology-called molecular imaging-that may produce a visual record of the collection of these early biomarkers on the whole surface of a very small tumor. This platform technology will allow doctors to detect prostate and many other cancers at their earliest stage, and more accurately than existing detection methods that sample only small areas of tumors from biopsy, yielding only partial information.

To image multiple biomarkers on the whole surface of a living tumor, the Basilion team has generated a reporter probe from the enzyme, Beta Galactosidase or Beta Gal. The scientists engineered Beta Gal to bind to a pair of biomarkers on living cancer cells and immediately generate a signal that "reports" the presence of the biomarkers, creating an image that can be captured by a camera. Dr. Basilion believes the Beta Gal method, which is a minimally invasive procedure, to be the most sensitive test for identification and detection of biomarkers expressed on a whole tumor. The future of molecular imaging technology holds great promise for the detection of prostate cancer and other types of cancer - at its earliest stage - when patients can be most effectively treated.

Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D.
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
Cancer Terminator Virus Delivers a One-Two Punch to Prostate Cancer

Dr. Fisher has developed an innovative gene therapy that delivers a "One-Two Punch" against many cancers, especially metastatic prostate cancer. This new therapeutic is a genetically reprogrammed virus, called "Cancer Terminator Virus" (CTV) that specifically infects and destroys tumor cells by replicating itself within the cells. Dr. Fisher's therapeutic virus employs a special gene element he discovered in his work on pancreatic cancer which can only turn on virus replication in tumor cells, but not in normal cells. This is the first "Punch". In prostate cancer cell lines, the virus copies itself inside the prostate tumor cell and eventually causes cell death. This smart control system ensures that this small biological killing machine only fires on tumor cells.

To further improve its killing effects, Dr. Fisher's team made the virus capable of producing the tumor-killing molecule, interferon gamma (IFNγ). As a natural product of our immune system, IFNγ can kill tumor cells directly, as well as indirectly by eliciting immune responses. Intriguingly, both the viruses and IFNγ generated by them go and seek out tumor cells, whether localized or metastatic, and destroy them, without harming normal healthy cells in the body. This is the second "Punch" to cancer, and this unique feature of CTV makes it especially useful for patients whose prostate cancer has stopped responding to other treatments and has metastasized.

The Fisher team has recently overcome a major hurdle facing viral therapies when administered into patient's bloodstream, protecting the therapeutic virus from being quickly deactivated by the body's immune system before it can deliver its therapeutic payload to the cancerous tissue. By using a new medical contrast agent called microbubbles, along with ultrasound, Dr. Fisher has developed a rapid, effective, and safe delivery system, enabling CTV to target the cancer in a stealth mode, thereby avoiding the body's antiviral immune responses. This research project is nearing the preclinical phase, and with continued success, clinical studies may use CTV to treat late stage prostate cancer patients.

Danny Welch, Ph.D.
University of Kansas Medical Center
Development of Novel Anti-Metastasis Therapies to Stop Metastasis to Bone

Nearly 90% of patients with prostate cancer develop metastasis in bone. When prostate tumor cells arrive in bone tissue, they interact with the normal bone cells and cause the formation of abnormal bone that eventually, leads to pathologic fractures, spinal cord compression, and intense pain. Research progress towards effective therapies has been hampered in this field, in part due to the lack of appropriate bone metastasis model systems. But not for long: the NFCR Center of Metastasis Research, University of Kansas Medical Center, directed by Dr. Danny Welch, is forging ahead with his collaborators from universities across the United States. This remarkable team will utilize a complex 3-dimensional cell culture system that includes the cell-types of normal bone tissue to open the research doors toward an understanding of the metastatic process in bone.

The model system permits the scientists to add metastatic prostate cancer cells and study the interactions of the tumor cells with the bone microenvironment-allowing them to dissect the molecular events responsible for bone metastasis. As those molecules are identified, they represent targets for therapeutic intervention of bone metastasis. The impact of the Center's research led by Dr. Welch is enormously significant as it could lead to novel anti-cancer therapies that prevent prostate cancer metastasis to bone from happening or keep it dormant, putting the cancer under control and giving patients better opportunities to cure the cancer or live longer.