W. Nathaniel Brennen, PhD

There is a need for new treatments that increase survival for advanced prostate cancer (PC) patients. Doctors mostly still rely upon hormone therapies for PC, but patients become resistant to these drugs. Sometimes this resistance occurs through developing neuroendocrine (NE) PC.  This change is controlled by enzymes that regulate the gene expression programs. Many patients have mixed tumors with both forms of PC. Unfortunately, such patients have poor clinical outcomes. Therefore, it is important to identify drugs that can treat both to increase patient survival. One approach is to target lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1), one of the key enzymes needed for NEPC transformation. In this study, we will be using tumor tissue from PC patients treated with a drug targeting LSD1. This will help to identify patients that will benefit from this treatment and better direct patient selection in future clinical trials.