Principal Investigator: Owen Witte, MD
University of California Los Angeles

Defining Targets and Biomarkers in Prostate Cancer Stem Cells: New Therapeutic Opportunities

• It’s not what we thought: the basal stem cell (not a luminal cell) initiates human prostate cancer.
• Fresh human basal stem cells become cancerous as a result of 4 independent molecular triggers. The UCLA researchers turned “on” three cancer-causing genes, AKT, AR, and ETS, in healthy stem cells and grew them in a bed of mesenchyme (supportive connective tissue that “feed” basal stem cells) to generate human prostate cancer in a mouse.
• Recreated in plastic” spheres of cancerous human prostate glands were generated in mice. This new model will serve as a discovery system for anti-prostate cancer therapeutic agents.
• These findings garnered immediate interest from Pharma and Biotech for drug discovery and screening.