Personalizing the prostate

Although the epidermal growth factor receptor is overexpressed in prostate cancer, efforts to repurpose inhibitors that are marketed for other solid tumors have met with little success. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Medical Schoolthink they have found a marker forprostate cancers that are susceptible to inhibitors of the receptor-a secreted protein called SPINK1 that is structurally related to epidermal growth factor.

In 2008, a team led by Arul Chinnaiyan, professor of pathology at the medical school, first showed that high levels of serine peptidase inhibitor Kazal type 1 (SPINK1), which occurs in about 10% of patients with prostate cancer, were correlated with a greater rate of cancer recurrence.¹...