A study by the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine members including first author Loredana Puca, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Himisha Beltran, M.D., published an important new manuscript in Science Translational Medicine last week demonstrating the feasibility of targeting neuroendocrine prostate cancer, an aggressive prostate cancer subtype, with an antibody-drug conjugate against delta-like protein 3 (DLL3).
According to the manuscript, the authors confirmed the presence of DLL3 in the majority of metastatic neuroendocrine prostate cancers as well as a subset of castration resistant adenocarcinomas, but not in localized tumors or normal prostate, and showed its association with aggressive clinical features. They then demonstrated the effectiveness of targeting DLL3 in multiple mouse models as well as a human patient.
EIPM Member Loredana Puca, Ph.D.
“This study provides the rationale for targeting DLL3 in patients with DLL3-positive metastatic prostate cancer,” said Loredana Puca, Ph.D. (left).
Other EIPM team members involved in the research include Katie Gavyert, Verena Sailer, Aram Vosoughi, Heng Pan, Samaneh Motanagh, Andrea Sboner, David M. Nanus, Scott Tagawa, David Rickman, Olivier Elemento, and Juan Miguel Mosquera. This study also included collaborators at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, AbbVie Pharmaceuticals, and Epic Sciences.
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