Russell Szmulewitz, MD, discusses his research in the field of Prostate Cancer treatment.
RUSSELL SZMULEWITZ: My research focus is on therapeutic development and castration resistant prostate cancer. In particular, I am focused on understanding and targeting how prostate cancer can evade the standard therapies we use. One of the really exciting and emerging pieces of data that we are gathering from our research is that there is another hormone receptor, called the glucocorticoid receptor, that might compensate for androgen activity when it is blocked. And it might lead to resistant progression. We have a large therapeutic trial targeting this receptor and ongoing laboratory-based research to understand how this happens. One of the biggest challenges in the treatment of castration resistant prostate cancer is this therapy resistance. And the hope is that by combining two therapies that specifically target these resistance mechanisms, and in this case, the glucocorticoid receptor, we can prolong the sensitivity of therapies and help prolong patients' lives and quality of life.
