City of Hope researchers identify biomarkers that may detect risk of advanced prostate cancer in Black men

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Scientists at City of Hope have identified a cell metabolism process found in men with diabetes and metastatic prostate cancer that could one day lead to improved testing and treatments for Black men with these diseases.

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The intersection of diabetes, obesity and cancer represents an important and underappreciated challenge in medicine. Apart from smoking, overweight is now the leading modifiable risk factor for cancer. With the global epidemic of overweight and diabetes driving cancer incidence across multiple organ sites, understanding the metabolic underpinnings of this relationship has never been more critical.
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The landscape of cancer care in America faces critical challenges: geographic disparities in access, socioeconomic barriers to advanced treatments and the increasing complexity of precision medicine that outpaces individual providers’ ability to stay current. At City of Hope, we are addressing these systemic issues through a bold expansion that brings world-class cancer care and research closer to where patients live.
When I first proposed targeting PCNA (proliferating cell nuclear antigen) as a therapeutic approach, the response I got was: “No one will ever make a drug against PCNA. It’s undruggable.” The protein lacks enzymatic activity, has a disordered region, and binds to over 200 other proteins within the cell. From a traditional drug development perspective, these characteristics made PCNA an impossible target.

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