INTRODUCTION TO GIANT

The detailed knowledge of the human genome that is now available has unlocked new opportunities for the treatment of disease. Gene therapy has so far proved to be a controversial as well as promising avenue of research. A European Union funded collaborative project, 'Gene therapy: an Integrated Approach for Neoplastic Treatment' (GIANT), aims to make gene therapy both safer and fully acceptable for the clinical treatment of prostate cancer.

One of the reasons prostate cancer is a candidate for new therapies is that there is currently no effective treatment after relapse. The disease is second only to lung cancer as the cause of death to men in Europe, while its causes remain unknown. In addition, the rate of incidence has increased greatly since 1950. Though some of this increase may be attributable to improved detection, an estimated 150,000 cases now occur every year across the EU.

source: Cancer research UK

Over a five-year period, GIANT will receive over nine million euro of EU support as an Integrated Project under the Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health area of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). Oncologists will look into targeting the disease, while vectorologists focus on the design of delivery vehicles, or vectors, for the therapy.

“Sophisticated medicine is heading towards patient-specific treatments”, says Professor Maitland, “and prostate cancer is notorious for its heterogeneity” i.e. having the same or very similar characteristic from patient to patient. The GIANT project aims to address this by developing several therapeutic agents in parallel, hoping to produce an optimised set of vectors from which appropriate treatments can be selected.
The coordinator of the project, Professor Norman Maitland, explains, “building on the work of two projects on prostate cancer and one on viral vectors carried out previously, we've brought together prostate cancer experts, immunologists, viral vector and non-viral vectorologists”.

Research at the forefront of medical science is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. This brings its own challenges, such as experts in targeting trying to design delivery vectors as well. GIANT brings both sets of researchers together, says the professor, “we say we need this target, they say if they can deliver it”.
The GIANT project has brought together three European research groups on non-viral vectors and invited them to work on solving these problems for prostate cancer, “after the first meeting we were all very encouraged. We're now also looking for non-viral vectors highly specific to prostate cancers”, affirms Professor Maitland.