Dr. Nima Sharifi

PSA Rising /DALLAS/ – July 25, 2011 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have narrowed the potential drug targets for advanced prostate cancer by demonstrating that late-stage tumors are driven by a different hormonal pathway than previously was thought.

“We have recently discovered that castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is unexpectedly driven by dihydrotestosterone synthesis from adrenal precursors in a pathway that circumvents testosterone,” says Dr. Nima Sharifi, assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of a  study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The dominant pathway to DHT synthesis from adrenal precursors in CRPC [castration resistant prostate cancer] follows an alternative route that bypasses T and requires steroid 5α-reductase isoenzyme-1 (SRD5A1),” Dr. Sharifi writes.