Andreas Varkaris

About Andreas Varkaris

Understanding the molecules and mechanisms that contribute to prostate cancer progression and resistance to therapies will help researchers to design better treatments for patients. Dr. Andreas Varkaris is studying how prostate cancer cells are able to activate the oncogenic growth factor receptor, MET, to develop resistance to drugs that inhibit MET or other targets. Prostate tumor cells that have developed resistance to the MET inhibitor cabozantinib, will be studied to determine how MET becomes reactivated and escapes inhibition by cabozantinib. MET can be activated by a number of alternative pathways against which drugs are currently being tested in clinical trials for prostate and other cancers. These pathways will be studied to determine how MET is activated by them and whether cabozantinib-resistance mechanisms of MET-reactivation could cause resistance to these other drugs. If successful, this project will lead to the development of combination treatment strategies that override or bypass MET-mediated drug resistance mechanisms.