The major long term goals of this project are 1) to standardize culture of cancer cells from individual prostate cancer patients, 2) to develop molecular profiling for cancer predictive characteristic such as chromosomal aneuploidy, circulating markers for cell proliferation and quiescence, androgen receptor gene copy. The molecular profiling is intended to provide a window into the metastatic potential of circulating cancer cell, as a prognostic tool. The patient-specific cultured cells, besides providing a wealth of research material for researchers studying prostate cancer, would serve the vast clinical market for (in-vitro out of body).
Specific aims of Phase 1 are: 1. Seed cultured prostate cancer cells into white blood cell rich fraction (simulating leukapheresis-which concentrates circulating cancer cells) and enrich for live cancer cells. 2. Compare experimental approaches to further enrichment (to a 1:10 cancer cell to WBC ratio). 3. Culture the cancer cells. 4. Develop molecular profile assays for use on these samples. 5. Final goal is isolate, perform molecular characterization and culture cancer cells from 15 patients' leukaphereis samples. The technological innovation to the field of molecular analysis is a system to isolate, and characterize circulating cancer cells and provide circulating cancer cultures for further work.
Molecular profiling of cancer cells isolated directly from a patient's blood could have great commercial impact as a clinical test for prognosis and/or to directly monitor the effects of therapy on the circulating cancer cells. The second major commercial potential would be applications for cancer cell cultures isolated from individual patients.
