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HHMI: WHY ARE YOU FOCUSED NOW ON PROSTATE CANCER?
CLS: There's a phase when prostate cancer becomes metastatic where there is actually a useful treatment: hormone therapy. This is analogous to giving women who have breast cancer drugs like tamoxifen, which inhibits the estrogen receptor. So there are prostate cancer drugs that inhibit the androgen receptor. They're effective for almost all men, but only for a couple of years before resistance develops. Recent work in my lab has revealed that the androgen receptor—the target of the initial drugs—is restored in patients that relapse. That led us to search for compounds that block the activity of the androgen receptor in cells with high levels of the receptor. We came up with a compound that is now in a Phase 3 clinical trial.
HHMI: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF THE INFORMATION THAT WE CURRENTLY HAVE AT OUR DISPOSAL?
CLS: We need to develop a genomic-based cancer classification system. Breast cancer, for example, now is divided into three different groups that define patients who will be treated differently. This needs to happen at scale across all cancers. It requires the Cancer Genome Atlas project to be completed, and it requires the resulting avalanche of information to be codified into a smaller set of tests that can be used to classify all cancers. [That information] would then guide the use of inhibitors.
HHMI: WHAT RECHARGES YOUR BATTERIES AFTER AN 80-HOUR WEEK?
CLS: I think it's seeing a clue, either from a laboratory experiment or from a clinical trial, that offers an explanation for why this patient didn't respond or this patient did. It's a mystery, and you might have the first clue to who-done-it.
Another thing that gets me jazzed as I grow a little older is seeing a young trainee for whom suddenly the light bulb goes on. And they're in the lab all the time, trying to chase the answer to the question they're working on. I love seeing their excitement. 
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Found in Translation
Listen to physician-scientist Charles Sawyers talk about his views on translational research while watching him move through a typical work day at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
 
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Charles Sawyers is chair of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program..
This article was edited from an interview by Steve Mirsky.
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