Grant: Project Grant

Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy in Canadian males and the third leading cause of cancer-related death in men in most Western industrialized countries. In 2015, Statistics Canada estimations assumed that 24,000 Canadian men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and that 4,100 of those will die from the disease. On average, 66 Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 11 Canadian men will die from it every day. This demonstrates that prostate cancer remains a major health burden in the near future. Unfortunately, treatments for advanced and metastatic prostate cancer are limited. Additional therapeutic options are therefore urgently needed to improve patient survival. Our lab has recently made the exciting discovery that a synthetic compound, which modulates gene expression through activation of a protein named FXR, is an efficient blocker of common prostate cancer cell lines growth. In this application, we propose to determine the therapeutic interest of this molecule in human prostate cancer cells and in animal models representatives of several stages of prostate cancer evolution. These experiments will establish a solid basement for future clinical trials.