# Development of Protein Biomarkers in Post-DRE Urine for use in Liquid Biopsy of Prostate Cancer

> **NIH NIH U01** · EASTERN VIRGINIA MEDICAL SCHOOL · 2021 · $220,035

## Abstract

Prostate cancer is a major and growing health problem. Prostate cancer is distinguished from almost every other adult
cancer by its remarkable clinical heterogeneity. While some cancer types are almost universally curable (e.g. thyroid
cancer), and others are almost universally lethal (e.g. pancreatic cancer), prostate cancers are characterized by their
variability. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is used to screen for prostate cancer, and the introduction of PSA screening
detected more low risk cancers than in the “pre-PSA” era. About 40% of newly diagnosed prostate cancers are
indolent and will not cause significant health problems during a man’s life. However, the remainder range from
intermediate to high risk, and despite definitive local therapy about 10-20% will end up progressing to more
aggressive disease. Thus, the key clinical problem in prostate cancer is not early detection of disease, but rather early
detection of aggressive disease. African American (AA) men have a significantly higher incidence of prostate cancer
overall, along with elevated rates of relapse after definitive local therapy and disease-specific mortality. AA men with
low-risk disease who opt for surgery have almost twice the rate of upgrading, and increased frequency of adverse
pathologies. These findings have led to a reluctance to recruit AA men onto active surveillance due to concern for
presence of aggressive disease. It is also clear that current tissue-based prostate cancer biomarkers perform differently
in AA men relative to men of European Ancestry (EA). For example, PTEN loss and ERG expression is less frequent
in prostate tumors arising in AA men. It is a general consensus that with the appropriate biomarkers current clinical
management strategies can be tailored to achieve ancestral equity. We hypothesize that non-invasive biomarkers
developed in men of Caucasian ancestry will not be equally effective in men of AA ancestry and dedicated biomarker
development strategies will improve prognosis of AA patients

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10261032
- **Project number:** 3U01CA214194-05S1
- **Recipient organization:** EASTERN VIRGINIA MEDICAL SCHOOL
- **Principal Investigator:** Paul Christopher Boutros
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $220,035
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2016-09-15 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10261032

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10261032, Development of Protein Biomarkers in Post-DRE Urine for use in Liquid Biopsy of Prostate Cancer (3U01CA214194-05S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10261032. Licensed CC0.

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