Dr David Waugh

Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast

Improving radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer

Although survival from prostate cancer is improving, the disease still claims thousands of lives every year in the UK. At Queen’s University Belfast, Dr David Waugh is investigating why some prostate cancers don’t respond well to radiotherapy. He hopes his research will reveal new ways of improving this mainstay treatment so that more men’s lives can be saved.

Genetic changes

Many men with early-stage prostate cancer are given radiotherapy – treatment with radiation to damage and kill cancer cells. This treatment is often very successful but, for around one in three patients, the cancer stops responding to radiotherapy and starts growing again.

Dr Waugh is researching how certain genetic faults in prostate cancer cells can protect them from the damaging effects of radiation. He’s studying prostate cancer cells in the lab to find out how these faults change the messages sent between cells, allowing them to grow and survive in the face of radiotherapy.

He also wants to find out what happens when these messages are blocked. This approach could offer a way to make resistant prostate cancers more sensitive to radiotherapy, helping to save more lives in the future.