The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) has awarded a $300,000 grant to a team of prostate cancer researchers at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and McMaster University.
The research team, led by Dr. Richard Austin and Dr. Bobby Shayegan, aims to develop a new drug for prostate cancer treatment that is effective against late-stage disease – when it is usually hardest to treat.
Drs. Austin, Shayegan, and their colleagues have created a synthetic antibody that targets a protein on the surface of prostate cancer cells, which plays a key role in the growth of tumours. After promising results shrinking tumours in mice models, the team will use the funding provided by OICR to take the next steps towards advancing this potentially first-in-class therapeutic.
“Once prostate cancer spreads, it becomes much more difficult to treat,” said Dr. Austin. “But we have found an exciting new way to attack prostate cancer cells that could provide new hope to countless men.”
The grant for this early validation project was awarded as part of OICR’s Cancer Therapeutics Innovation Pipeline (CTIP) initiative.
In addition to the funding, the CTIP’s committee of experts from academia and industry advises research teams on the science and approaches needed to advance their discoveries, and the strategy to attract the partnership and investments needed to bring a new drug to the clinic.
The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research is a collaborative, not-for-profit research institute funded by the Government of Ontario. OICR conducts and enables high-impact translational cancer research to accelerate the development of discoveries for patients around the world while maximizing the economic benefit of this research for the people of Ontario.