SEPTEMBER 2020 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 31
PRESS HEALTH
PROSTATE CANCER RESEARCH
INHIBITOR SHOWS PROGRESS
BY JUSTIN CAPERA
A Stony Brook University-led research
team is investigating a new prostate
cancer treatment that could offer an alternative
to chemotherapy without the
adverse effects on patients or tumors
building up a resistance.
The research is testing a fatty acid-binding
protein (FABP) in the treatment
of inflammation, pain, and halting
the spread of certain cancers as drug
targets themselves, or in combination
with chemotherapy treatments such
as docetaxel or cabazitaxel, a class of
drugs known as taxanes.
“In our research, neither docetaxel or
cabazitaxel alone was able to eradicate
prostate cancer cells in vitro, while
combinations of taxanes with FABP5
inhibitors resulted in complete prostate
cell death with synergism at very low
concentrations of taxanes,” said Iwao
Ojima, Ph.D., the lead investigator and
director of SBU's Institute of Chemical
Biology and Drug Discovery.
The study, in collaboration with Artelo
Biosciences, is funded by a five-year
$4.2 million grant from the National
Cancer Institute (NCI). The research
seeks to advance findings from a
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preliminary study of FABP and its
inhibitors that earned a Fusion Award
seed grant from the Renaissance School
of Medicine at SBU.
The original work that Ojima and
team co-leader Martin Kaczocha,
Ph.D., did with Lloyd Trotman, Ph.D.,
a professor at Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, led to a peer-reviewed paper
published in the medical journal
The Prostate. The team found FABP
worked against highly drug-resistant
metastatic prostate cancer cells and
also enhanced the anti-tumor effects
of taxane drugs in animal models, the
researchers say.
Ojima, Kaczoha, and Trotman are working
on the project with Robert Rizzo,
Ph.D. a professor of applied mathematics
and statistics at SBU.
”We expect to continue the momentum
of breakthroughs with our
cancer research enterprise,” said
Yusuf Hannun, M.D., director of the
SBU Cancer Center. “This expansion
of the research by Dr. Ojima and his
colleagues with new federal funding is
the type of progressive work we hope
sets the bar toward our NCI cancer
center designation and impacts patient
care in the near future.”
Team leaders L. to R.: Robert Rizzo, Iwao Ojima, Martin Kaczocha, and
Lloyd Trotman.
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