Volume 6, Number 29July 19, 2002

UW researchers and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) have received a grant for more than $10.5 million over five years to study the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer. Paul Lange, professor and chair of the UW Department of Urology, is the principal investigator on the project Mechanisms and Markers of Prostate Cancer Metastases.

The National Cancer Institute will provide the UW $5.46 million, FHCRC $2.7 million and the ISB $2.3 million for four major collaborative projects. The studies include an intensive study of genes and proteins that make prostate cancer cells virulent and stimulate their metastasis to human bone.

• Project 1: Leroy Hood, co-founder and president of the Institute for Systems Biology, is the project manager of New Molecular Markers of Progressive Disease. Researchers will continue their search for genes that could be diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for prostate cancer.
  
  
• Project 2: Eva Corey, research assistant professor of urology, and Robert Vessella, professor of urology, are the project managers of Prostate Cancer Growth in Bone. This grant will expand a program that explores why prostate cancer has a proclivity for metastasizing to bone and will utilize an ongoing rapid autopsy program in which staff respond within two hours of a donor's death to obtain bone and tissue samples critical to these studies
  
  
• Project 3: Peter Nelson, associate professor of medicine and associate member of the Human Biology and Clinical Research divisions at FHCRC is the project manager for Novel Prostate Proteases. This project will determine the role of prostate-associated proteases produced at high levels by prostate cancer cells
  
  
• Project 4: Stephen Plymate, research professor of medicine, is the project manager for Androgen Independence and Growth Factors in Progression of Cancer. This project involves a study of the relationship between testosterone and other hormones and prostate cancer.

The grant also earmarks money in three study cores for animal model studies of prostate cancer, tissue acquisition, expenses related to the conduct of molecular biotechnology, and administrative costs.