Prostate Cancer

This is a correlative tissue protocol to collect primary and metastatic prostate cancer specimens in order to discover new biomarkers, potential drug targets, study androgen axis signaling, and evaluate resistance developing in response to systemic therapy. Analysis of acquired specimens will provide the basis for the development of improved systemic therapy for prostate cancer patients. The mechanisms for conversion of treatment-sensitive to treatment-resistant prostate cancer are poorly understood. An improved understanding of the mechanisms of resistance to drugs targeting prostate cancer will allow design and testing of new therapeutic agents. With the advent of genomics and proteomics, which enable experiments to be conducted in parallel and on a large scale, one approach to identifying targets in cancer is to compare a statistically significant number of healthy tissues samples with cancerous tissue samples, and measure differences in DNA sequence patterns, gene expression patterns including microRNAs/noncoding RNA, patterns in protein levels or differences in metabolic products. Once individual or sets of differences have been established, the next challenge is to determine which differences are normal variations in pattern; which changes are causing the cancer cell to divide or survive in an unchecked manner; and which are repercussions of the causative change. Hypotheses for "lead targets" are arrived at through statistical analyses and validation experiments in both test tubes and in animal models of disease. These experiments are costly and intensive undertakings, but have generated an enormous amount of useful information and improved the investigators' collective understanding of how tumors develop, grow and survive.