Grant: Project Grant

Late-stage, therapy-resistant cancers are a big health problem and urgently need better treatments. A common feature of aggressive cancers is a different way of generating energy. In contrast to normal cells, many cancer cells use sugar (glucose) to over-produce lactic acid and release it into the surrounding tumour environment. Unexpectedly, this excess lactic acid helps cancer survival, growth, and spread in many important ways. Most importantly, it helps cancer cells avoid being destroyed by the patient's own immune system. Cancers mainly use MCT4 to transport lactic acid out of cells. We have successfully completed our first CIHR Commercialization Grant and identified a new class of anti-MCT4 drugs that is both safe and effective. These drugs show a remarkable ability to kill aggressive cancer cells, slow tumour growth, stop cancer spread, and restore anticancer immunity. We now aim to build upon this success and complete the development of this effective MCT4 drug, ultimately taking it to a first-in-human clinical trial. We will do this by 1) confirming the safety of our MCT4 drug to ensure that it is suitable for human trials, 2) identifying the appropriate clinical readouts that indicate our MCT4 drug is effective in patients, 3) determining the gene and protein signatures that might suggest a patient is more likely to respond to MCT4 treatment, and 4) finalizing our clinical trial design. Funding this project will build upon our initial success and bring a new MCT4-targeting drug for clinical testing in patients with advanced cancers. Given the fact that this method of utilizing sugar is widespread among many aggressive cancers, the successful completion of this project will broadly improve therapy for a wide range of cancer patients, ultimately improving patient survival.