Silvia Rodrigues, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in our lab, has been awarded the Young Investigator Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF). This prestigious award supports promising early-career leaders who will keep the field of prostate cancer research vibrant with new ideas. The PCF Young Investigator Award will provide crucial funding to support Dr. Rodrigues's research on how lipid metabolism drives prostate cancer plasticity and resistance to therapy.
Using genetically engineered mouse models, patient-derived organoids, and integrative lipidomic and transcriptomic analyses, Dr. Rodrigues will explore how FASN (Fatty Acid Synthase) overexpression promotes cellular reprogramming and progression toward castration-resistant and neuroendocrine phenotypes, the most aggressive and treatment-refractory forms of the disease. The project will also examine how dietary lipid composition affects tumor adaptation and response to androgen receptor (AR)-targeted therapies. By combining metabolic, pharmacological (FASN inhibition), and nutritional (PUFA-enriched diet) interventions, the project aims to uncover new therapeutic strategies that couple lipid metabolism modulation with current antiandrogen treatments, potentially improving treatment durability and quality of life for patients with advanced prostate cancer.