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DOD AWARDS GRANT TO U.VA. FOR PROSTATE CANCER RESEARCH

Of all the places in the body prostate cancer cells can spread, or metastasize, bone tissue is normally the most prevalent. And it’s not just prostate cancer. Bones are the third most common site for all circulating cancer cells to grow. To understand more about this process, the University of Virginia Health System has been awarded a half-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate promising treatments to try and halt the spread of prostate cancer to bone.    

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men after skin cancer. About 221,000 new cases of the disease will be detected in 2003, according to the American Cancer Society, and about 29,000 men will die of prostate cancer this year in the U.S.

The three-year grant will support research into how prostate cancer cells spread to bone tissue. The study is led by Gary Balian, a professor of orthopedic research and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at U.Va.

Jay Fox, professor of microbiology and assistant dean of research at U.Va., is also involved in the research, along with Robert Sikes, a former U.Va. professor who is now a professor of biological sciences at the University of Delaware.

“We are excited to have been selected as a team to tackle such an important problem in cancer,” Balian said. “The combination of our resources and expertise will help us make  sufficient headway in our research to understand the mechanism of cancer metastasis to bone and submit a highly-competitive programmatic application in the future.”

The research team hopes to find a new treatment for prostate cancer metastasis in bone, either by a selected peptide that targets bone cells or using peptides to deliver a pharmacologic agent to the cancer. Peptides are molecules consisting of two or more amino acids. 

About half of all people with cancer, excluding skin cancer, develop bone metastasis at some point, according to the American Cancer Society. Bone metastasis is one of the most frequent causes of pain for cancer patients. It can also cause bone fractures, high blood calcium levels, and other complications that affect quality of life.

May 29, 2003