Antoinette Perry

About Antoinette Perry

A critical unmet need for prostate cancer research is the identification of aggressive tumors at an early stage while potentially curable and distinguishing them from indolent tumors to avoid over-treatment of clinically insignificant disease. The study of chemical modifications to DNA is called epigenetics. Prostate cancer is driven by several epigenetic alterations and genetic abnormalities. Epigenetic alterations can be detected non-invasively with high sensitivity in peripheral blood and urine. Therefore, detecting prostate cancer-specific epigenetic alterations holds potential for both improved prostate cancer diagnostics and patient risk-stratification. Dr. Perry is developing blood and urine biomarkers for the non-invasive detection of aggressive prostate cancer. Dr. Perry’s results will potentially help discern aggressive, high-risk prostate cancer from indolent disease. The identification of an epigenetic pattern of DNA alterations that is specifically associated with aggressive prostate cancer holds promise for alleviating the burden of over-treatment of indolent disease.