UChicago Medicine-led team selected for the 2022 Michael & Lori Milken Family Foundation-PCF Challenge Award to develop novel immunotherapy approaches in advanced prostate cancer
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) has awarded a $1 million grant to a renowned specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Physician-scientist Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, MMSc, and his team, recipients of the 2022 Michael & Lori Milken Family Foundation-PCF Challenge Award, will investigate developmental immuno-oncology and hormonal therapies in advanced prostate cancer. As an expert in cancer biology and a translational physician-scientist, Patnaik is an authority on prostate cancer treatment.
PCF Challenge Awards are granted to select teams at leading cancer research centers, following a rigorous two-tier peer review process. They fund international, multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary teams of investigators conducting highly innovative and transformative research with the greatest potential for accelerating new and improved treatments for advanced prostate cancer.
Immune checkpoint immunotherapies are cancer treatments that have been highly effective in several cancer types and can result in long-term regressions and cures. However, these treatments have yet to demonstrate significant success in prostate cancer.
A major reason for immunotherapy failure in advanced prostate cancer is the “immune desert” tumor microenvironment, which is infiltrated with cancer-promoting myeloid cells, particularly macrophages. Therapeutic strategies to reprogram these tumor-promoting macrophages may sensitize prostate cancers to immune-based medicines.
Patnaik and colleagues made a seminal discovery that NLRP3, an immune-activating protein, is specifically expressed in tumor-promoting macrophages following FDA-approved androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) commonly used for treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
We are optimistic that this strategy will lead to definitive medicines to alleviate suffering and improve survival for our patients with advanced prostate cancer.
They found that NLRP3 activation promoted tumor clearance in combination with ADT in a preclinical mouse model of prostate cancer.
In this newly funded project, a multi-institutional team led by Patnaik will investigate whether activation of NLRP3 will overcome immunosuppression and sensitize advanced prostate cancer to immune checkpoint immunotherapy.
“This award will support our exciting laboratory bench-to-bedside studies on NLRP3 as a novel innate immunotherapeutic target in prostate cancer,” said Patnaik.
The team will demonstrate the mechanisms and potential for NLRP3 activation as a new treatment strategy, alone or in combination with immunotherapy and/or androgen deprivation therapy. If successful, this project will pave the way for NLRP3-activation-based immuno-oncology combinations for advanced prostate cancer treatment.
“We are optimistic that this strategy will lead to definitive medicines to alleviate suffering and improve survival for our patients with advanced prostate cancer,” Patnaik said.
“Congratulations to Dr. Patnaik and his co-investigators at Oregon Health & Science University and Massachusetts General Hospital on their 2022 PCF Challenge Award,” said Howard R. Soule, PhD, executive vice president and chief science officer for the UChicago Medicine is designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute, the most prestigious recognition possible for a cancer institution. We have more than 200 physicians and scientists dedicated to defeating cancer. Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, MMSc, is a medical oncologist specializing in the care of patients with genitourinary cancers, including prostate, bladder, kidney and testicular cancers. He also has a strong interest in the development of novel therapeutics for treatment of advanced solid tumors.
UChicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center
Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, MMSc