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Vancouver researchers funded to improve treatment
options for prostate cancer
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun November 29, 2010
The Prostate Centre
Photograph by: Handout, ..
VANCOUVER - Two researchers with the Vancouver Prostate Centre will be employing
a sophisticated new type of computer modelling in an attempt to hasten new treatment
options for prostate cancer.
Art Cherkasov and Paul Rennie have received $324,000 in funding, half of that from
Genome BC and the rest from partners that include the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research and the prostate centre.
The researchers will employ a new field called computational chemogenomics, using
computer modeling in virtual 3-D to predict how different chemicals or drugs will affect
cancer tumours.
Currently, prostate cancer is treated with drugs that either block or bind the male
hormone receptor thereby effectively shrinking the tumour. For many men, the
effectiveness of this type of treatment is temporary and the cancer cells become
treatment resistant.
To help create new prostate cancer drugs that overcome such drug-resistance issues,
researchers will seek to identify a new class of chemicals that act on the male hormone
receptor in a different way.
They will examine more than 10 million compounds or chemicals looking for potential
new drugs, using computational chemogenomics to screen the compounds using
computer software to gauge the potential effectiveness of the chemicals in targeting
prostate tumours.
Rennie said this form of "virtual screening" could shave years off the typical discovery
process for new drug candidates and allow scientists to identify and test the most
promising chemical compounds more rapidly. Currently, it can take 10 years or more to
bring a compound to the stage of testing in humans. The new process could also
reduce medical costs.
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