Circulating Tumour Cells and prostate cancer outcome

In Canada, 25,500 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, and 4,100 will die of the disease. New approaches are required to predict clinical outcome and personalized management of patients. Drs. Mai and Cayre will combine their two newly developed technologies and work towards obtaining a new solid biomarker that enables the assessment of a patient’s clinical outcome from the start. With the use of special filters, circulating tumour cells (CTC) will be isolated from prostate cancer patients’ blood. These cells are characterized using three-dimensional (3D) imaging of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes) in the cells’ nuclei. This will be the first time these new technologies are combined to investigate the link between CTCs, their 3D telomeric profiles and clinical outcome of prostate cancer. A much better understanding and personalized management of prostate cancer, which is a major goal of Cancercare Manitoba will be achieved by this project.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Sabine Mai

Student:

Julius Adebayo Awe

Partner:

Carl Zeiss Canada Ltd.

Discipline:

Medicine

Sector:

Life sciences

University:

University of Manitoba