The Cabrini Monash University Department of Surgery and Let’s Beat Bowel Cancer are proud to announce the awarding of a major Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA) grant to the partnership formed between our research platform in health and our research partners at Monash University. This major grant confirms the importance of the tissue and data bowel cancer research platform that we have built at Cabrini and the importance of our working partnerships with collaborators at Monash University and the Monash Comprehensive Cancer Consortium.

A team of researchers from Cabrini health, Hudson Institute of Medical Research and Monash University have recently been awarded a $2 Million Translational Research Project grant from the Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA).

This grant will start a Phase II clinical trial aimed at identifying which patients with bowel or prostate cancer will respond well to a new suite of anti-cancer drugs called BET inhibitors.

BET inhibitors are a class of epigenetic modulators which target the actual DNA of the tumour cells. The trial aims to predict which sub set of patients will benefit from treatment with the BET inhibitor drug regime, by identifying a biomarker and then evaluating which can be applied at the point of diagnosis, to detect BET sensitivity.

Using unique banks of prostate and bowel cancer tissue for preclinical studies, investigators retrospectively looked at which patients responded to BET inhibitors and found markers they believe they can predict the “best responders” to the therapy.

Having identified these markers, the research team will conduct a three-year trial that utilises patient biopsies to see whether they have markers associated with BET inhibitor responsiveness and then to follow these patients as they receive the treatment.

The Phase II trial is expected to begin within 12 months. Twenty-four patients with Stage IV malignancy will be recruited, and the researchers expect to have a suite of markers associated with responders and non-responders to BET inhibitors within 24 months.

Prostate and bowel cancers are the biggest causes of cancer deaths in Australia. Despite advances in early screening, there is significant need to bring new treatments to patients.

Project Title

Super-enhancer templated RNAs as predictive biomarkers of BET inhibitor sensitivity in prostate and colorectal cancer

Investigators

Dr Arun Azad (Lead Applicant), Dr Ron Firestein, A/Prof Helen Abud, A/Prof Paul McMurrick, Prof Gail Risbridger, Dr Simon Wilkins