Dr. Catalona’s cutting-edge collaborative research project with Drs. Theodorescu and Svendsen:

Categories: Spring 2023

Induced pluripotent stem cell project with Cedars Sinai

Australia Big Rocks P6A Oldfield 1
©Dan Oldfield

Dr. Catalona is collaborating with Dan Theodorescu, MD Ph.D. (a cancer center director and a cancer researcher) and Clive Svendsen, Ph.D. (a neuroscientist with expertise in induced pluripotent stem cell technology) at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on this project on BRCA2-related prostate cancer. These researchers are submitting a grant to the new CureBRCA Foundation through the recent request for proposals they released.

The first aim of this project is to define the specific DNA and genetic transcriptional profile of prostate cancer arising in men with and without germline BRCA2 mutations. The second is to generate induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from patients treated with radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer. The third objective is to define genes that specifically promote the transformation of BRCA-mutant iPSCs. The overall goal is to make a series of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines with as much genetic and clinical annotation as possible from men with BRCA2 mutations who have aggressive prostate cancer and are late in disease so that clinical history is understood. Then see if prostate organoids made from these lines could have predicted the disease course, especially metastasis. Future studies will be to use this model in combination with genomics, etc., to predict the disease course in newly diagnosed men. Once produced and characterized, the lines would be made available to the whole BRCA research community (through an appropriate agreement) with minimal restrictions to allow cutting- edge research.

As the CIMBA Consortium has perhaps the largest collection of patients with BRCA2-related prostate cancer, they will collaborate with as many of the CIMBA investigators as possible on this project.

For more information see:

Spring QUEST 2022, Dr. Dan Theodorescu: Surgeon, Researcher, Cancer Center Director, pages 1-3.

Summer/Fall QUEST 2022, BRCA Research and Cure Alliance, pages 1-3, and Expansion of cancer risk profile for BRCA 1 and 2 variants, page 5,

Winter QUEST 2022, Family studies of BRCA2-related prostate cancer, pages 5-6.

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