Newcastle researchers have won a grant to test a new technique which could lead to better diagnosis and treatment of aggressive prostate cancer. The team at Newcastle University has received more than £340,000 from men’s health charity Prostate Cancer UK as part of its £2.7m Research Innovation Awards scheme. Prostate cancer cells are surrounded by groups of sugars called glycans and previous studies have suggested that removing these sugars could trigger cancer cell death. This research, led by Dr Jennifer Munkley, will investigate why this reaction occurs and how it can be harnessed to develop new treatments and methods to diagnose aggressive prostate cancers. Dr Munkley, from the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, said: “We already know that the sugars surrounding prostate cancer cells play some role in cancer cell death, but we don’t know nearly enough, which is why this grant from Prostate Cancer UK is so important. Through this work we will monitor how the prostate cancer cells are affected by adding and then taking away sugar groups. We will then test to see whether existing cancer drugs which block sugar groups from forming are effective in preventing the prostate cancer cells from growing. We will also be looking at the sugar groups to see whether they can be used as a potential marker to diagnose prostate cancer and distinguish between aggressive and non-aggressive forms of the disease."
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