Hans Hammers

About Hans Hammers

Dr. Hammers has initiated a project to determine the mechanisms of resistance of advanced prostate cancer to angiogenesis inhibitors, like Avastin, that block the development of new blood vessels that supply blood and nutrients to developing tumors. Early and impressive results from Dr. Hammers’ work reveal that resistant tumors display a marked increase in pericytes, cells that support small, new, blood vessels. Pericytes are hypothesized to promote angiogenesis in prostate cancer. The goal of this project is to search a large library of compounds that are FDA-approved for the treatment of life-threatening diseases but have not been tested against pericytes. Compounds that can inhibit the association of pericytes to blood vessels and therefore impair resistance mechanisms of tumors to angiogenesis inhibitors will be selected for testing. If successful, clinical testing of these compounds can occur expeditiously within the PCF/DoD Therapy Consortium as they are already in clinical use for the treatment of patients with other diseases.