Personalized approaches to modulate tumor behavior using vitamin D3
Host: FUNDACION CENTRO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLOGICAS CARLOS III (Spain)
PhD awarding institution: UNI Madrid (Spain)
Lead Supervisor: F Real
Objectives: 1) to establish a biobank of blood and tumor samples from patients prior to and after administration of vitamin D; 2) to assess the effects of vitamin D administration on expression of tumor-relevant proteins and to validate the pharmacological effects by assessing expression of vitamin D receptor target genes in blood leukocytes; 3) to assess at the transcriptome-wide level the changes in gene expression in tumor and identify genetic profiles associated with vitamin D administration, including bioinformatics analysis of the data; and 4) to identify clinical and molecular variants associated with the response to vitamin D. This information will be crucial to provide the basis of subsequent clinical trials in which the effect of vitamin D on the recurrence of bladder cancer is tested with the aim of increasing patient cure rate.