Praveen K. Jaiswal, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Shreveport, has received a prestigious Research Scholar Award for Mentored Prostate Cancer Research from the American Urological Association’s (AUA) Urology Care Foundation. Dr. Jaiswal’s award is one of only nine awards funded throughout the country for 2019-2021.
The award will help Dr. Jaiswal and the team of researchers led by Hari K. Koul, PhD, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Shreveport, to investigate a novel strategy to treat Castrate Resistant Prostrate Cancer (CPCR), which is responsible for over 30,000 deaths in the United States each year and for which there is currently no cure. This is a new and emerging area of cancer therapy being developed in Dr. Koul’s laboratory, and it will have a potential impact for managing the CRPC and therapy resistance. Dr. Jaiswal’s award will help to further explore how translational reprogramming in CRPC and therapy resistance can be targeted by inhibiting cap-dependent translation by modulating EIF4G1, a key component of translation initiation complex.
This study builds on the recent discovery that Dr. Koul and his colleagues found that the gene EIF4G1 is amplified and overexpressed in a majority of CRPC patients that allows prostate cancer cells to overcome current treatments. They also found that the silencing of this gene or inhibiting function of the EIF4G1 protein sensitized CRPC cells to antiandrogens, as well as second-generation AR targeted therapies, in experimental settings.
“This is quite exciting that EIF4G1 would serve as an excellent target for combination therapy with current first and/or second generation AR targeted therapies,” says Dr. Koul.
“I am thankful to my mentor, Professor Hari K. Koul, for giving me the opportunity to work on this exciting project. I also express sincere gratitude to all my laboratory members for their great help and contributions,” said Dr. Jaiswal.