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APCRC-Q Research featured in Top Story of Prostate Cell News

Congratulations to Nathalie Bock, Ali Shokoohmand, Thomas Kryza, Joan Röhl, Jonelle Meijer, Phong A. Tran, Colleen C. Nelson, Judith A. Clements and Dietmar W. Hutmacher. Their article entitled: “Engineering osteoblastic metastases to delineate the adaptive response of androgen-deprived prostate cancer in the bone metastatic microenvironment” was featured as Top Story in the 26 April 2019 issue of Prostate Cancer Cell News.

Congratulations to Nathalie Bock, Ali Shokoohmand, Thomas Kryza, Joan Röhl, Jonelle Meijer, Phong A. Tran, Colleen C. Nelson, Judith A. Clements and Dietmar W. Hutmacher. Their article entitled: “Engineering osteoblastic metastases to delineate the adaptive response of androgen-deprived prostate cancer in the bone metastatic microenvironment” was featured as Top Story in the 26 April 2019 issue of Prostate Cancer Cell News.

The article describes how the team has successfully tissue-engineered and validated an in vitro (outside the body) micro-tissue model of osteoblastic bone metastasis. This three-dimensional model of prostate tumour cells growing in a bone-like microenvironment offers a new platform for studying how metastatic prostate cancers respond to therapies.

The model will allow researchers to more readily examine key cellular and microenvironmental interactions between prostate cancer cells and bone-forming osteoblast cells without interference from other biological processes taking place within the body. Hence they will get a clearer picture of how prostate cancer metastasises to bone.

Validation of this model also indicated that the in vitro osteoblastic tumour microenvironment could reproduce some of the cellular changes that take place in vivo (in the body) during androgen deprivation. Cell lines with the greatest bone metastatic potential grew best, and depriving cells of the hormone androgen, led to a more aggressive disease phenotype consistent with that observed in the tumours of men with castration-resistant prostate cancer. The system offers a new way to test for relevant biomarkers and therapeutics in the laboratory.