Project Grant R01CA315227

The National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute awarded Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory $793,679 on August 6, 2026, under the Cancer Biology Research program (CFDA 93.396) to develop whole-body redox maps for metastatic cancer therapy.

The project uses protein degradation-based sensing to visualize oxidative stress in vivo across animal models of prostate cancer. The work generates two complementary, immune-competent mouse models—OXIGEM and ROXYCAP—that reveal cellular redox states through red and green fluorescent channel reporter systems. OXIGEM harbors a germline redox reporter at the Rosa26 locus to display organ-level redox states as channel ratios. ROXYCAP applies virus-based somatic gene transfer to convert a single normal prostate cell into a tumor, enabling tracking of redox state changes during disease progression and therapeutic intervention. These maps will inform how standard-of-care therapies (radiotherapy, radioligand therapy, chemotherapy) exert oxidative stress on tumors and metastases versus healthy tissues, and will support evaluation of pro-oxidant menadione as a selective prostate cancer cell death agent through triaptosis.

The project period runs through July 31, 2031, with performance at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The Cancer Biology Research program supports fundamental investigation into cancer cause, biology, and etiology with the goal of advancing prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment methods.