David Olmos, the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre's (CNIO) Head of the Prostate Cancer and Genitourinary Tumours Clinical Research Unit, has won the 2014 Stewart Rahr-PCF Young Investigator Award, endowed by the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) - the leading philanthropic organisation for cutting-edge research into prostate cancer.
Olmos is the first Spanish scientist and one of a select number of European researchers to receive this prestigious award, which is normally awarded to Canadian and US scientists.
The $225,000 prize is earmarked for the Research Unit led by Olmos at the CNIO and that was set up in 2012 with the support of the CRIS Foundation for Cancer Research and the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC). The project's objective will be to study the biological mechanisms associated with DNA repair, errors in which could lead to more aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
Olmos states that he feels "privileged as a researcher who, at an early stage of his career, has been able to make a significant contribution to our understanding of prostate cancer," and he highlighted the fact that "previous winners of this award are now world leaders in the field."
Since he joined the CNIO after having worked at the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London, he and with his team have made important contributions to the field of cancer research; for example, his 2013 description of the first hereditary factor with a prognostic role in prostate cancer.
EARLY DETECTION OF TUMOUR AGGRESSIVENESS
"From these analyses we have identified hereditary alterations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which lead to far more aggressive forms of prostate cancer. These or similar alterations could spontaneously occur in other patients and be responsible for aggressive tumour behaviour, even after early diagnosis," warned the CNIO researcher.
"We are currently working with several national and international centres to study samples from hundreds of patients - something that will allow us to distinguish between tumours that behave aggressively and those that don't," he added.
Once the genetic markers that allow an estimate to be made of the degree of aggressiveness of prostate cancer have been identified, Olmos will begin working on a generation of new preclinical models that will hasten the development of more effective treatments.
At the same time, his unit at the CNIO is participating in and coordinating several clinical trials in collaboration with other oncology centres in Spain, Europe, the US, Canada and Australia, in order to develop new treatments designed around genetic markers for tumour aggressiveness.
Olmos also added that over the next few years "we will study, together with other renowned international centres, treatments that are especially directed towards the repair of damage and errors in the DNA's genetic code - as in the case of PARP protein inhibitors."
LIQUID BIOPSIES FOR THE STUDY OF TUMOURS
Another of the milestones achieved by the CNIO researcher was the 2012 development of a detection technique for aggressive prostate tumours based on simple blood tests. Now, his team is working on the validation of this practice via a large-scale study of up to 300 patients from 30 centres around Spain.
"Our aim is to be able to detect aggressive prostate cancers using a fast, simple blood test," said Olmos.
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