The Pacific Northwest (PNW) Prostate Cancer SPORE aims to focus on finding molecular and other factors associated with the risk of prostate cancer recurrence and progression as well as its response – and resistance – to treatment. In 2002, the NCI awarded Fred Hutch $12.7 million to lead a multi-center, multi-project, five-year investigation into the genetic mechanisms of prostate cancer progression, and most recently in 2018 renewed the SPORE through 2023.
Dr. Pete Nelson is co-director of Core A (Leadership & Administration) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE and co-leader of Project 4 (Clinical Development of Therapeutic Strategies Targeting DNA Damage Repair). Dr. Nelson is a full member of Fred Hutch, a professor in the University of Washington Medical School’s Medical Oncology Division, an adjunct professor in the UW’s Departments of Genome Sciences and Pathology, co-head of the Cancer Center’s Program in Prostate Cancer Research (PPCR), and Director of the Canary Foundation Prostate Cancer Program.
The focus of Dr. Nelson’s current work (in the Nelson Lab at Fred Hutch) involves efforts to understand the process of prostate carcinogenesis with an aim toward developing diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies. The major projects of the Nelson Lab are molecular analysis of therapies for early and late stage prostate carcinoma, characterization of the prostate androgen-response program, analysis of prostate serine protease function in metastatic prostate carcinoma, determining the role of damage responses in the tumor microenvironment that promote cancer growth and resistance to therapy. For more information about the Nelson Lab’s work, visit the Nelson lab site.