Vishal Kothari

About Vishal Kothari

• New therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers for treatment-resistance prostate cancer (CRPC) would greatly improve outlook and decrease mortality rates for men with advanced forms of this disease. Recent research has identified DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNAPK), a molecule that regulates cell function, as a key driver in CRPC metastatic progression.
• Dr. Vishal Kothari will use gene sequencing of clinical tissue from CRPC patients to investigate how DNAPK increases Wnt signaling. Overexpression of Wnt signaling is implicated in onset of 30% of patients with treatment resistance and is induced by androgen deprivation therapies (ADT).
• Defining the DNAPK interaction network will allow Dr. Kothari to determine the effectiveness of using a DNAPK inhibitor combined with standard ADT medicines in treating men with CRPC.
• Dr. Kothari’s study is poised to make significant advancements toward using DNAPK activity as a biomarker for prognostic tools and targeted therapies to treat men suffering from CRPC.

What this means for patients: Early diagnosis of aggressive, lethal types of prostate cancer is a critical unmet clinical need. Validating DNAPK as a prognostic marker will provide a novel clinical tool to guide early treatment intensification, and may guide personalization of treatment for men with prostate cancer.