A New Test May Predict How Well New Treatments Will Work Against Prostate Cancer
Grantee: Raymond Blind, PhD
Institution: Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
Term: 7/1/2017 to 6/30/2021
The Challenge: For reasons no one understands, drugs to kill cancer don’t work for many patients. The problem is, no one knows how well the treatment will work until the patient’s received it. That means, a patient could have all the side effects of a drug without any of its power to kill cancer.
The Research: Raymond Blind, PhD, and his research team developed a new type of technology that tests a patient’s tumor to see how well it will respond to anti-cancer drugs. Their aim is to help people already diagnosed with prostate, liver, or brain cancer.
The Goal and Long-term Possibilities: Blind's goal is to apply his findings to develop new classes of medicines to fight these cancers. His team’s technology could also help explain how cancers develop, which could make clinical trials for new drugs more likely to succeed.