Portia Kondoni

• Bsc (Hons) Physiology
• A role for Monocarbboxylate Transporters as Metabolic Target’s to Improve Prostrate Cancer Therapeutics

Prostate cancer is a common cancer diagnosed in men in the UK with approximately 40,000 new cases diagnosed every year. The symptoms are mostly apparent when your prostate is affecting the urethra (a tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis). The causes of prostate cancer are largely unknown. However to treatment prostate cancer there are different survival pathways within prostate cancer cells that can be targeted by drugs to either reduce symptoms or cure prostate cancer. The aim of my project is to investigate the main survival pathway within prostate cancer called “metabolic symbiosis”. This is a process whereby the surrounding cells around prostate cancer cells (stroma cells) fuel the adjacent tumour cells in order for them to survive. We will be testing different concentrations of a drug that we hope that might potentially inhibit the interaction between this two cells, hence kill prostate cancer cells.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Dr Stuart McCracken