This program will recruit from all ethnic groups with a focus on over-sampling of underserved and minority populations. We want to identify men who are at risk of prostate cancer as well as those who have a very low risk - men who might never have to be screened. Second, for men who are at risk of developing prostate cancer, we want to find new methods to prevent the disease. Ultimately, we'd like to put ourselves out of business by preventing the disease entirely. Dr. Thompson's team also hopes to discover novel biomarkers.
Scientists are interested in the changes of the signature when a normal cell becomes a cancer cell.
Dr. Ian Thompson's research group is seeking answers to this conundrum. Dr. Thompson's team applied statistical regression analysis to data from 288 African-American and 975 white men, all with metastatic prostate cancer. After we corrected for all measurable and known reasons why cancer survival is different, African-American men still had shorter survival than other men in the study. This difference emphasizes the importance of further studies investigating these differences with a goal of causing a fall in number of deaths from the disease. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in U.S. men.