Help Us Fight Prostate Cancer
Introduction to Our Research
The Prostate Project gives financial support to the Oncology team in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences (FHMS) at the University of Surrey. In fact the charity was pivotal in the creation of this group providing 50% of the start-up funding. The team has 24 members with an extensive range of experience, from laboratory-based projects involving basic cell and molecular biology to the delivery of clinical trials in human cancers.
They specialise in cancer immunotherapy, a revolutionary new form of treatment which artificially stimulates the immune system to treat cancer in a less toxic way and will help transform cancer care in the UK. The group is supported by the infrastructure required to undertake complex, multi-disciplinary studies.
A particular strength of the team, which other cancer research centres find difficult to access, is the acquisition of patient samples (after suitable ethical approval) and this is partly due to the strong links and close collaborative relationships between clinicians and scientists with the local Royal Surrey County Hospital, and the neighbouring St Luke’s Cancer Centre and the Surrey Clinical Research Centre (CRC).
Professor Hardev Pandha, Trustee and Professor of Medical Oncology, specialises in targeted cancer therapy and how to use the body’s immune system to target prostate cancer. Here he explains what advanced prostate cancer is, and that although many great strides have been made with early detected prostate cancer (almost 100% survival rates after 5 years), only minimal progress has been made in treatments for advanced prostate cancer.
The internationally acclaimed group is led by Professor Hardev Pandha who is also a Trustee of our charity. The group are conducting cutting edge research into targeted therapies for cancer, diagnostic biomarkers to detect prostate cancer from patient urine and also biomarkers which will aid diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.
The group has an established track record for the supervision of MD and PhD students and has published an impressive 110 original peer reviewed papers since arriving at Surrey. The group has an active portfolio of phase I, II and III trials in new cancer therapies (small molecule inhibitors, cancer vaccine, viral and gene therapy).
Dr Nicola Annels explains why our cancer research team need state of the art equipment to support their innovative, ground- breaking research into advanced prostate cancer. They are focusing on developing new and better targeted treatments to help keep advanced prostate cancer under control, manage symptoms, and ultimately extend the lives of our fathers, sons, brothers and friends who have advanced prostate cancer.
Key Achievements
- Identification, and development of HTL-001, a peptide cancer drug, which causes cancer cells to ‘self destruct’. Such is the success that a spin-off company has been established, HOX Therapeutics Ltd, which will continue to develop HTL-001 as a tablet treatment for prostate and other cancer
- Development of a new cancer killing Herpes Virus, rendered safe by genetic engineering, and armed with powerful immune proteins to treat bladder and other cancers. This virus was patented in 2023 and clinical trials are planned for 2026
- One of 3 pioneering centres in the UK to use live viruses to treat cancer
- The group has been instrumental in bringing immune-based treatments to the clinic, initially with cancer vaccines, but now with agents including live viruses which destroy cancer cells and alert the immune system to destroy the cancer
- The group discovered and patented a new diagnostic marker for prostate cancer, and one which is in the form of a simple urine test. Numerous publications, and independent corroboration of the data in centres in Cambridge, the Mayo Clinic and Cornell University, conform its diagnostic potential. This work has now moved to a collaboration with a technology company Advanced Materials Design, to make a point of care test that will be suitable for rapid diagnosis nd monitoring.
- In conjunction with the biotechnology company Viralytics, the research group conducted a First-in-man phase I clinical trial of Coxsackie A21 in bladder cancer patients at the Royal Surrey County Hospital. Coxsackie A21 virus causes the common cold but is also a known oncolytic (cancer-killing) virus which can kill tumour cells as well as stimulating the host’s own immune system to attack the tumour.
- The group has also evaluated 4 other cancer killing viruses in phase 1 and phase 2 studies, and established an internationally recognised centre for cancer immunotherapy
- The group has combined immunotherapy with conventional chemotherapy in a phase 3 clinical trial
- The group evaluated 2 types of cancer vaccines for the treatment of prostate cancer and ovarian cancer
- Establishment of the SUN study – a bio-repository and accompanying ‘database’ of 450 patients with all stages of prostate cancer. This allows access and participation in the worldwide consortium, ‘PRACTICAL’, a study of prostate cancer involving 800,000 men
- 282 publications in peer reviewed journals (including ‘Nature’) and a new text book ‘Viral Therapy of Cancer’
- Practice changing discovery that for patients with locoregional renal-cell carcinoma at high risk for tumour recurrence after nephrectomy who received adjuvant treatment with Sunitinib (a targeted cancer treatment) had a longer duration of disease-free survival than did those receiving placebo
- National and international collaborations – University of California, Cornell Medical School, University of Leeds, Mayo Clinic, Royal Marsden London, Bristol Urological Institute, and others
- 5 Patents filed
- 10 PhD students sponsored
- 3 MD students sponsored
Walk-through the labs and meet the scientists
Join us on a walk-through the cancer research labs at the University of Surrey and meet some of the scientists that you help to fund.