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2020 Todd Boehly-PCF Young Investigator Award

Leanne Woods-Burnham, PhD

City of Hope

Mentors: Rick Kittles, PhD; Tanya Dorff, MD

HER2 and AR Signaling in Prostate Cancer

Description:

  • African American men suffer from significantly increased prostate cancer incidence and mortality compared with European American men. African American men are often underrepresented in prostate cancer studies and clinical trials, and thus there is a significant lack in knowledge regarding the biology and treatment responses of African American men with prostate cancer. There is an urgent need to better understand the biology of African American prostate cancer that can be used to predict which patients are more likely to suffer from an aggressive form of the disease, and develop better patient-specific treatments.
  • Dr. Leanne Woods-Burnham is studying the biology contributing to the worse prognosis observed in African American prostate cancer patients.
  • The androgen receptor (AR) is the major driver of prostate cancer. African American prostate cancer patients have been found to have a higher frequency of inherited and tumor mutations in AR, as well as increased AR activity.
  • HER2 is a breast cancer associated protein that has also been associated with more aggressive prostate cancer. In preliminary studies, Dr. Woods-Burnham has found a correlation between HER2 gene expression and West African ancestry in African American prostate cancer patients.
  • In this project, Dr. Woods-Burnham will study AR and HER2 levels and mutations in African American prostate cancer, in order to indicate the therapeutic potential for combining anti-HER2 and anti-AR treatments in HER2+ African American prostate cancer patients.
  • The circulating levels of HER2 and AR will be determined in African American and European American prostate cancer patients.
  • Genomic sequencing will be performed on tumor samples from African American and European American prostate cancer patients in order to identify HER2 and AR mutations, and determine their association with other genomic features.
  • If successful, this project will validate whether HER2 and AR are amplified in African American prostate cancer patients. This information will be used to design a Phase II race-stratified clinical trial with a focused African American target accrual to treat HER2+ prostate cancer patients with newer, more efficient anti-HER2 drugs.

What this means to patients: Dr. Woods-Burnham will determine whether HER2 is a biomarker of aggressive prostate cancer and possible treatment target in African American prostate cancer patients.  This information will be used to design African American-focused precision medicine clinical trials testing new HER2-targeting therapies, which could significantly reduce prostate cancer disparities in African American men.