Qianben Wang, PhD, has been awarded a three-year U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) grant, starting on March 1, 2023, to target the N-Myc oncogenic transcription factor in neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), an extremely aggressive form of prostate cancer. This project aims to uncover the molecular and genomic mechanisms by which N-Myc drives oncogenic transcription in metastatic NEPC by utilizing cutting-edge genomic technologies, CRISPR RNA-targeting technologies, and nanotechnologies in cellular, animal, and human tissue models.
The success of this project will deepen his team’s understanding of NEPC, and lay the foundation for future medical applications of a nanoparticle-delivered CRISPR/Cas13 RNA-targeting system to inhibit N-Myc oncogenic transcription and block NEPC metastases.
Pathology Department Chair Jiaoti Huang MD, PhD, and Jung Wook Park, PhD, assistant professor of Pathology, are co-investigators of the grant.