Some prostate cancer progresses despite treatment with androgen deprivation therapy, which blocks the androgen synthesis enzyme CYP17. A team led by UM’s Nima Sharifi has uncovered a previously unknown pathway of disease progression that could explain why.

“We addressed this challenge directly, through chemical and biochemical methods. Next, we used a series of genetic approaches …. Basically, we expressed every known enzyme in this family to figure out what else can do this,” says Sharifi. The CYP51 pathway the team discovered is not targeted by current medicines. The next step is to figure out how this finding might be important to the care of men with prostate cancer.

• Nima Sharifi