Justin Drake

About Justin Drake

• Men with progressive metastatic prostate cancer are often treated with medicines that target androgen receptor (AR) pathways. These patients invariably develop resistance to current AR treatments (e.g., Lupron, Zytiga®, Xtandi®).
• Dr. Justin Drake will use bioinformatics and a computational model of CRPC tumors to identify other pathway targets for therapy. Specifically, he will focus on several mutations of tyrosine kinase enzymes, which are the “on” or “off” switches for many cellular functions.
• Activated kinase pathways may drive metastatic CRPC cell growth despite use of AR inhibitors.
• Evaluation of clinical tissues and mouse models of human CRPC will allow Dr. Drake to identify specific combinations of pathways that allow metastatic CRPC cells to proliferate, and test combinations of existing therapies that suppress these growth signals.
• Dr. Drake’s research may lead to personalized treatment strategies that combine currently-available inhibitors of kinase signaling to significantly improve outcome in patients with CRPC.

What this means for patients: New targets for the treatment of AR medicine-resistant prostate cancer represents an unmet medical need. Dr. Drake’s investigation of kinase inhibitor targets holds promise of filling this therapeutic goal.