Researchers in OICR’s Informatics and Bio-computing and Genome Technologies Programs, together with their collaborators, have discovered a new sub-type of prostate cancer. The findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics, will assist scientists in creating better diagnostic tests and improve the personalized treatment of prostate cancer. The study was conducted as part of the Canadian Prostate Cancer Genome Network (CPC-GENE), a multidisciplinary team of researchers from across the country that is studying the genetic code of prostate cancer to better predict how patients will respond to treatment. CPC-GENE is part of the Canadian contribution to the International Cancer Genome Consortium.

“This work is a wonderful example of what happens when a multi-disciplinary team of researchers applies cutting-edge technology to ask clinically-relevant questions,” said Dr. Paul Boutros, a principal investigator at OICR, who co-led the research. “The discovery of a new oncogene in prostate cancer opens a brand new field for researchers to try to understand prostate cancer biology and treatment. Meanwhile the characterization of the way mutations in prostate cancer vary spatially from one region of a tumour to another will facilitate the development and application of personalized therapies by helping researchers understand why new diagnostic tests fail.”