# Precision Interception of Aggressive Prostate Cancer in African American Men

> **NIH NIH P20** · DANA-FARBER CANCER INST · 2020 · $348,847

## Abstract

PROJECT 3 SUMMARY
 African American/black (AA) men have a higher overall incidence, earlier age of onset,
increased proportion of clinically advanced disease, and increased mortality from prostate
cancer (PCa) compared to European Americans (EA). These differences persist even after
correcting for socioeconomic covariates. This raises the possibility that ancestral differences in
PCa biology or somatic genetics might contribute at least in part to the observed differences in
outcome. We have recently completed whole exome sequencing characterization of primary
prostate cancer from African American men and identified potential genomic differences
between prostate cancers in AA men and men of European ancestry. These data as well as
work from others suggest that underlying genomic alterations may be contributing to disparities
in prostate cancer outcomes among AA men.
 We hypothesize that 1) African American/black (AA) prostate cancers harbor distinct
genomic alterations that correlate with resistance to androgen-directed therapies and may
contribute to the poorer outcomes observed in AA men with prostate cancer compared to their
European counterparts; and that 2) aggressive prostate cancers have distinct cellular
composition in the microenvironment compared to less aggressive cancers in AA men. Our
goal is to leverage genomic technologies to identify the genomic alterations and cellular
populations that are associated with lethal prostate cancer in men of African ancestry.
 To achieve this goal, we propose the following specific aims: 1) To determine the
genomic alterations in plasma cell-free DNA (cfDNA) associated with resistance to androgen-
directed therapies in men of African ancestry with mCRPC and 2) To characterize the cancer
and immunological cellular subpopulations associated with aggressive primary prostate cancers
in men with African ancestry using single-cell RNA sequencing.
 The results of this project will advance our understanding of the genomic and cellular
features that are associated with lethal and aggressive prostate cancers in men of African
ancestry.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9994870
- **Project number:** 5P20CA233255-03
- **Recipient organization:** DANA-FARBER CANCER INST
- **Principal Investigator:** Franklin W Huang
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $348,847
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9994870

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9994870, Precision Interception of Aggressive Prostate Cancer in African American Men (5P20CA233255-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9994870. Licensed CC0.

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