Vancouver Prostate Centre
2660 Oak Street V6H 3Z6 Vancouver, BC, Canada

Ninadh D’Costa, PhD student in Dr. Alan So's lab, was awarded the Kidney Cancer Research Network of Canada (KCRNC)-SOPER Foundation Grant for her project titled Identification and validation of a comprehensive gene signature to determine treatment response and guide precision oncology on patients with metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma.

Dr. Daksh Thaper has been awarded the prestigious Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs - CDMRP Early Investigator Research Award for his project, "Characterizing and targeting the interplay between transcription factor BRN2 and SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex in small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancer." Dr. Thaper is a postdoctoral fellow (PDF) in Dr. Amina Zoubeidi's lab. https://cdmrp.army.mil/pcrp/awards/20eiraawards

We are hiring a regular, full-time Research Associate to join the Gobind Khorana Protein Engineering Core under the direction of Dr. Nada Lallous - visit our website for more details on this and other open job postings https://www.prostatecentre.com//current-employment-opportu

Dr. YZ Wang's most recent publication, which reports that an interaction between the GRB10 protein and PP2A sustains androgen receptor signalling which is critical for the progression of castration-resistant, is the focus of today's Science in the City profile. https://scienceinthecity.com//grb10-sustains-ar-activity-/

Please visit our Current Employment Opportunities page for open postings, including one for the Daugaard lab which was added yesterday: Laboratory Research Assistant https://www.prostatecentre.com//current-employment-opportu

Our Centre is hiring a Purchasing Coordinator (Casual), and applications close October 15. Please visit our website for more details https://www.prostatecentre.com//current-employment-opportu

Our research team is proud to raise funds for the Terry Fox Foundation. Our fundraising page is still active until the end of the month at terryfox.ca/VancouverProstateCentre

September's Health Check at Miss 604,in partnership with the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation, is guest-authored by Dr. Gleave for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month https://miss604.com//health-check-prostate-cancer-awarenes

Congratulations to our Centre's two CIHR Project Grant awardees: - Drs. Gleave and Lack for their 3-year project, "Identification of HOXB13 inhibitors to treat castrate-resistant prostate cancer" - Dr. YZ Wang for his 4-year project, "The role of PRDM16 in neuroendocrine prostate cancer development and aggressiveness" Links to further information about these project are at our website: https://www.prostatecentre.com//drs-gleave-lack-and-wang-a

On the forty year anniversary of the Marathon of Hope, Terry Fox continues to be an inspiration. Our fundraising team, lead by Dr. Black and made up of UBC Urology residents and fellows, Vancouver Prostate Centre professors, staff, trainees and friends, took part in locations across BC and have raised over $16,000 for cancer research. Our donations page is http://www.terryfox.ca/VancouverProstateCentre

The "Try like Terry" virtual event for the 40th anniversary of the Marathon of Hope is this Sunday, September 20. Our team website for joining and/or donating is http://www.terryfox.ca/VancouverProstateCentre

Congratulations to our Centre's Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research 2020 Award recipients. Dr. Hach received a Scholar Award for his project "Computational Methods For Monitoring The Evolution Of Tumours." Our Centre has two MSFHR Trainee Award recipients: - Dr. Francesco Gentile (Cherkasov lab): Artificial Intelligence Based Discovery Of Estrogen Receptor Activation Function 2 (AF2) Inhibitors As The First-In-Class Therapies For Drug Resistant Breast Cancers ... - Dr. Shabnam Massah (Buttyan lab): Characterization Of Gli Proteins As A Novel Therapeutic Target In Prostate And Breast Cancer Links to further project descriptions are in the comments. https://www.msfhr.org/2020-research-trainee-award-recipients

Dr. Xuesen Dong's most recent publication, which identified LIN28B as a potential therapeutic target to treat therapy-induced neuroendocrine prostate cancer, is the focus of today's Science in the City profile https://scienceinthecity.com//lin28b-promotes-the-develop/

Our Centre's Terry Fox team is registered for this year's independent, virtual run (there will be no centrally-organized events). Please consider joining us and fundraising, or donating, at http://www.terryfox.ca/VancouverProstateCentre

We are recruiting a PDF with a PhD in Computational Chemistry or Computational Biochemistry to join Dr. Cherkasov's lab; details at our website https://www.prostatecentre.com//current-employment-opportu

An international consortium of researchers led by Dr. Artem Cherkasov, Professor in the UBC Department of Urologic Sciences and Senior Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and Dr. François Jean, Associate Professor in UBC’s Faculty of Science, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, is receiving $2.1 million from CIHR to use artificial intelligence to search for SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors among known drugs. They will wo...rk to identify antiviral drugs that can work synergistically with antiviral therapy Remdesivir to boost its effectiveness and block SARS-CoV-2, similar to the drug cocktails used in treating HIV and hepatitis C infections. This research will be performed at UBC FINDER, one of the largest university-based containment level 3 facilities in the world, founded by Dr. Jean. https://news.ubc.ca//ubc-receives-14-million-in-federal-f/

Dr. Wyatt has received a 5-year Canadian Cancer Society Impact Grant for his project, "Practical genomic stratification to enable tailored treatment of DNA repair defective prostate cancer" https://www.cancer.ca//recent-compe/sept-2019-imp-results/

We are currently accepting applications for two positions: (1) Accountant, full time, and (2) postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Xuesen Dong's lab; visit our website for details https://www.prostatecentre.com//current-employment-opportu

This year it was a virtual event, with all participants taking part from their home. With 39 members, the VPC had the largest team entered in this year's event. Donations to our fundraising team are welcome at https://www.gifttool.com/athon/OurTeamPage

Friday June 19 is Wear Plaid for Dad day. Tweet a photo of yourself in plaid with the hashtag #PlaidForDad Dad, and Janssen will donate $5 to the Canadian Cancer Society (up to $20,000).

Participating in Plaid for Dad is a simple way to make an immeasurable difference in the lives of families who are or will be facing prostate cancer. Sign up your office at www.plaidfordad.ca and go #PlaidforDad on June 19 to be a force-for-life in the face of prostate cancer.

Dr. Cherkasov and his team just published a paper in ACS Central Science describing the development of a Deep Docking technology. This AI-based approach enables virtual screening (docking) of billions of molecular structures in a rapid, yet accurate fashion. Deep Docking provides up to 100-fold data reduction and 6000-fold data enrichment for candidate drug molecules. Among other applications, the developed AI-approach allowed rapid screening of 1.36 billion molecules against... a critical drug target in COVID-19. This paper has been accessed >1,500 times in the two weeks since its publication. This work has been supported by a Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute (CCSRI) Impact Grant. F.G. would like to thank the Ermenegildo Zegna Founder’s scholarship program for financial support. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.0c00229

A recent study published in Nucleic Acids Research provides new insights into how tumor cells protect themselves from oxidative stress, and the key role of G3BP1 in this process. Focusing on prostate carcinoma, the authors show that under oxidative stress, tumor cells utilize the RNA binding protein, G3BP1, for stress adaptation by increasing production of cytoprotective proteins. G3BP1 helps to partition mRNAs to stress granules where they are stored and their translation is... silenced. This saves energy as protein synthesis is very energy demanding. They found that G3BP1 is also intimately involved in how some mRNAs instead go to polysomes, sites of active protein synthesis, for selective production of cytoprotective proteins that protect tumor cells under stress. As shown in the diagram, they used a combination of proteomics and RNA sequencing to catalogue the landscape of protein synthesis under stress, which revealed a number of potential targets for therapy. Their data thus provides new insights into how tumor cells protect themselves from oxidative stress, and the key role of G3BP1 in this process. In this TFRI-funded study, Dr. Somasekharan conceived the idea, designed and conducted experiments, discussed and analysed the data, and co-wrote the manuscript. https://academic.oup.com///doi/10.1093/nar/gkaa376/5837052

Drs. Cherkasov and Hach have been awarded funding from UBC's Data Science Institute for their project, "The use of methods of deep learning for the virtual screening for COVID19 therapeutic candidates"

Dr. Chi was interviewed in TFRI's Spring 2020 newsletter, discussing the result of a Phase 2 clinical trial on the optimal sequencing of enzalutamide and abiraterone acetate plus prednisone in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer which was published in Lancet Oncology (November 2019). This research was funded by the Terry Fox New Frontiers Program, Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Prostate Cancer Canada, Movember Foundation, Prostate Cancer Foundation, BC Cancer Foundation, Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Janssen, and Astellas https://www.tfri.ca//clinical-trial-reveals-more-effective

Dr Cox is speaking to the Prostate Cancer Foundation BC Surrey Support group on emerging opportunities for management of advanced prostate cancer, this Saturday (May 30) from 10 AM - noon Pacific via Zoom; further details including connection instructions at the link https://www.prostatecancerbcsupportgroups.ca/cale/surrey-4/