丁香园：We know that Prostate Cancer Foundation funded 200 colleges, 1500 research project across 12 countries. Could you introduce the PCF current funding situation in Asia?
Simons博士: Our first program in Asia is in China. We're starting with finding young scientists but around large world-class programs. The first two Young Investigator Award are given to Dr. Shancheng Ren from Shanghai Changhai Hospital and Dr. Yuxi Zhang fromThe First Hospital of China Medical University. Here is the 973 grant the project of professor Sun, that would be the same as funding brilliant young scientists at Johns hopkins or Standford. Great place, great program, then start support young scientists.
丁香园：Why PCF picks China as the first stop in Asia funding?
Simons博士: Over the last 3 or4 years, research projects that were published in China were very important. Though we have funded projects all over the world, but what gets us interested in funding is research papers and people. China has come up in science, in medicine, in cancer and so on. All of a sudden,China comes up in prostate cancer.
丁香园：What attracts you the most in the Chinese study of Prostate cancer molecular mechanism and intervention?
Simons博士: 1）If we begin to understand the mechanisms in China, we will have better understanding of the disease around the world. 2）In China, there has been historically less prostate cancer than in our country, so the researches here give us an insight actually into early biomarkers. They may be very important in Asia and all over the world. 3）Whereever there is great research in early detection, we're interested in looking and funding it.
丁香园：What is the PCF and 973 cooperation frame work?
Simons博士: We have many cooperation frame works around trying to share data. We fund scientists around the world who share the data with us. The only thing we ask, we giving the word but we don't tell people what to do, except we ask them once a year or once every 6 months, tell us what you have learned. And when you published a paper, tell us what should be done next. So in a way PCF is like a university without walls of many Colleagues. So 973 is a great project now with Dr. Ren Shancheng that we are supporting, but the idea is that as 973 with Jianfeng Xu as they get more data, there may be opportunities for us to fund a specific project inside the big project. So we like to leverage. We have cooperation frame work agreements with at least 20 teams around the world. In our country, there're 11 that are called “national cancerspor”, that is the world's big team of our government money, but we put money into around into the new project. So cooperation frame work is as there's new data we get a chance to look at it, have our committee evaluate itfor what now we would like to fund more.
We criticise in a good way when we look at data from others. We let international committees of scientists evaluate and if they say that's such a good idea after peer review, our foundation will put money to do that. But the idea frame work is scientific, friendship, but the difference is we can write a check around the project, but only when the project looks like to peer review important enough to fund.. So we call them awards and we do this all the time.
丁香园：What you expect for the cooperation?
Simons博士: There may be a new urine or blood test from here to improve early detection and also new biomarkers. It's very exciting. And with Jianfeng Xu, may be a better genetic test for men of risk.
丁香园：由于前列腺癌的种族特异性明显，外国的研究成果并不适合国人，我们需要做的是探寻适合国人的具有中国特色的诊疗方法。此次与PCF合作，相当于是一次国际联手，这会对我们的研究产生哪些积极意义？
孙颖浩教授：我们很难有机会将很多中国人与很多外国人放在一起做一个临床、遗传、表观遗传、病理方面的比较研究。只有比较，才能鉴别，才能发现不同。或许这个不同就能为我们揭示前列腺癌的众多疑团提供一个很好的方法和方向，这就是我们应该合作的地方。不过，我们既要向国外学习，也不能只跟着国外走，因为有可能他们研究的内容拿给我们用是不合适的。比如在国外，融合基因的研究很热门，它在白种人的发病中起很重要的作用，然而我们发现，“融合基因”在前列腺癌发生恶变的时候，我们国人的情况和国外的研究不一样，诸如这类的问题需要我们去做完整的比对(详见Shancheng Ren,etc al. RNA-seq analysis of prostate cancer in the Chinese population identifies recurrent gene fusions, cancer-associated long noncoding RNAs and aberrant alternative splicings. Cell Res. 2012 Feb 21. doi: 10.1038/cr.2012.30)。当然，同时，因为PCF在全世界影响很大，全球研究前列腺癌顶尖的专家都得到过他们的支持，与他们有很好的协作。我们可以把973这个由中国政府资助的最大的前列腺癌的研究很快与国际接轨，这也是我们合作很好的事。
丁香园：PCF除了经济上的支持外，在科研上等其它方面是否有更特别的资助？
孙颖浩教授：首先，我们会把一些新的研究方法，国外的资源介绍给中国的科学家，另外，参加我们PCF项目的科学家可以把他们的数据在国际顶尖科学家的圈子内进行分享。此外，我们与政府以及医药的厂商之间也有紧密的联系，通过我们的宣传可以让公众都知道我们在做什么样的工作。这些联系起来有推进的作用。
关于PCF：
PCF（Prostate Cancer Foundation）是全球领先的基金会，致力于资助全世界的前列腺癌症研究。从1993年起，PCF资助了许多高风险高回报的科研项目，数额超过4亿7千5百万美金。在过去的20个月中，PCF基金的公益创投加快了对于3个全新的、获得了FDA批准的药物的投资，该药物针对治疗转移性前列腺癌患者。还有其它6种治疗项目目前正在试验的第三阶段。
关于Jonathan W. Simons博士：
Simons博士系PCF总裁&CEO，他是国际知名的医学科学家、肿瘤学家和前列腺癌研究转化医学的领导者。曾经担任:艾默理大学温希普癌症院创建者与院长；艾默理－佐治亚理工学院美国症纳米技术研究中心创建者；艾默理医学院血液学和肿瘤学杰出贡献教授；佐治亚理工学院生物医学工程和材料科学教授。
