U of M Cancer Researcher Receives Young Investigator Award

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (August 27, 2008) — Scott Dehm, Ph.D., a prostate cancer researcher at the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, has received a Young Investigator Award for 2008 from the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Dehm was one of 19 researchers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom selected to receive this award. He will use his share of the award, totaling $225,000, to continue his research on how to block the progression of prostate cancer that has recurred and is resistant to conventional treatments.

Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men. More than 230,000 men in the United States are diagnosed each year with this disease; about 4,300 of these men are Minnesotans.

Surgery and radiation therapy are the most common treatments for prostate cancer. If surgery or radiation therapy does not curtail prostate cancer, the next treatment is often androgen deprivation therapy to stop the growth and survival of the cancer. The therapy inhibits the androgen receptor (AR), a type of hormone receptor in the prostate that promotes prostate cancer growth. This treatment, however, is not curative, and over time the cancer can progress.

With this research award, Dehm will create laboratory models that show how the AR continues to cause growth of prostate cancer even after its activity is blocked. These models will provide greater understanding of the mechanisms of prostate cancer and may lead to the development of new treatments for men with advanced prostate cancer.

Dehm received his doctorate in biochemistry in 2003 from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and completed post-doctoral training at Mayo Clinic in Rochester before joining the Masonic Cancer Center in 2008. His mentors on this research project are Kenneth Koeneman, M.D., a urologic surgeon, and James McCarthy, Ph.D., leader of the Masonic Cancer Center’s Tumor Biology and Progression Research Program.

The Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota is part of the University’s Academic Health Center. It is designated by the National Cancer Institute as a Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information about the Masonic Cancer Center, visit www.cancer.umn.edu or call 612-624-2620.

Contact:      Mary Lawson, Masonic Cancer Center, 612-624-6165, mlawson@umn.edu
Sara Buss, Academic Health Center, 612-626-7037, buss@umn.edu