Ranjith Ramasamy, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Urology, is among the first physician- scientists to receive a new grant from the American Cancer Society intended to foster the development of investigators licensed to practice patient care and trained to conduct research. Dr. Ramasamy was awarded a Clinician Scientist Development Grant in the amount of $729,000 for his research study, "Nitric Oxide Based Immunotherapy for Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer (CPRC)," which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The incidence of CRPC is continuing to increase, and some patients don’t respond to available treatments,” said Dr. Ramasamy. “It’s important to identify new mechanisms of the disease and new drugs that can help these patients.”
Dr. Ramasamy, along with research partner Himanshu Arora, Ph.D., have shown in animal models that the S nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) compound, which increases nitric oxide levels, suppresses CRPC and has a major impact on tumor microenvironments, the complex, inflammatory shell around which tumors grow. Specifically, GSNO reduced levels of tumor associated macrophages, immune cells that cancers co-opt into their microenvironment.
“We are focusing on evaluating the efficacy of nitric oxide-based compounds in combination with currently available therapeutics – FDA-approved as well as pre-clinical – against CRPC,” said Dr. Arora, a researcher in the Department of Urology.
The initial research on GSNO was funded through an internal pilot grant from the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute and departmental support from Dipen Parekh, M.D., professor and chair in the Department of Urology, and chief clinical officer and chief operating officer of UHealth.
“Dr. Ramasamy’s discovery has the potential to be tested in future clinical trials either alone or in combination with other immunotherapy in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer who are non-responsive to both abiraterone and enzalutamide,” Dr. Parekh said.
Over the next five years, with support from this grant, Dr. Ramasamy and Dr. Arora anticipate uncovering the mechanistic as well as translational aspects of nitric oxide-based immunotherapy for treating CRPC.
