Abstract

Presently there is no effective molecularly targeted treatment strategy available for metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer. The current research strongly suggests for identification of potential molecular targets and global molecular signaling map in the context of human prostate tumorigenesis and its progression. Currently, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer in India and in 2016, more than 1.5 million new cases of prostate cancer has been detected in India, which is expected to reach nearly 3 million within 2020. Additionally, WHO (World Health Organization) warns that cancer (including prostate cancer) will become epidemic in India, which is the principal motivation for this current research. By an extensive manual curation of the published biomedical literature, we have recently developed HPCHM, a comprehensive database that depicts the first systems level molecular representation of human prostate cancer associated signaling and events, particularly at classical cancer hallmark level. These cancer hallmark capabilities, which is believed to be the fundamental organizing principle of human cancer, centrally drives and influences every aspect of prostate cancer development, from its initiation to pathogenesis. In this presentation, I will summarize our concept and attempt towards the fundamental conceptualization of cancer systems medicine and its application for hallmarks based systems level mechanistic exploration of human prostate cancer. Particularly it will cover most of the prostate cancer related pathogenic processes including inflammation, angiogenesis, immune deregulation, tumor microenvironment, chemo/radiation resistance, castration resistance, epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), cell invasion and bone metastasis.