Novel therapeutic approaches, based on drug repurposing, for high risk non muscle invasive bladder cancer driven by patients’ proteomic signatures

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Bladder Cancer (BC) is the costlier cancer type to manage, characterized by high recurrence and progression rates. Despite recent advancements, current BC therapeutic strategies remain suboptimal, mostly due to the disease molecular heterogeneity. Profiling at the transcriptomics and, very recently, proteomics levels, revealed the existence of a cross-omics conserved molecular signature marking progression from low to high risk non muscle invasive (NMIBC) and eventually muscle invasive disease. ReDrugBC targets to identify drugs, via drug repurposing, able to revert the aggressive molecular signature for NMIBC, hence tackling the disease at an earlier stage and on a more holistic manner. To address this state-of-the-art concept, ReDrugBC is divided into three highly interrelated strategic points: 1) drug identification (among existing compounds) for NMIBC based on the existent tissue molecular profiles analyzed in a multi-layer and multi-omics manner using specialized bioinformatics-drug prediction tools, 2) definition of impact of selected drugs on the functional properties of BC cell lines in vitro and 3) characterization and understanding of the drug impact on a molecular level, via the application of high-throughput proteomics analysis. This research program will be carried out in a research intensive SME-leader in clinical proteomics and multi-dimensional analysis, by a very active and promising young researcher originating from academia, in a multidisciplinary, implementation-oriented manner. Outreach activities include among others links to pharmaceutical companies and regulators to accelerate progress towards (pre-) clinical trials post-ReDrugBC. Collectively, the proposed approach in ReDrugBC paves the way for better treatment of NMIBC via drug selection based on the patient molecular signatures, while offering unique inter-sectorial training on translational research to a highly motivated young female researcher.