Urban Emmenegger, MD
Medical Oncologist
Associate scientist
Clinically, Dr. Emmenegger has a regular outpatient clinic for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer. He also has a special interest in patients with bone metastasis, and is the director of our prostate cancer bone metastasis clinic.
Dr. Emmenegger's lab aims to improve metronomic chemotherapy, the frequent and sustained use of conventional chemotherapeutic agents at low doses to produce antiangiogenic and immunomodulatory anti-tumour effects in the absence of high-grade side effects.
Current projects include the following:
Characterization of mechanisms of resistance to metronomic chemotherapy, including the role of autophagy
Use of patient plasma samples to identify microRNAs that can predict response to metronomic chemotherapy.
As an expansion of his clinical focus in the systemic management of castration-resistant prostate cancer, Dr. Emmenegger and his team are studying how fibroblast growth factor 23 contributes to aggressive prostate cancer behaviour.
Aside from Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trial activities, Dr. Emmenegger is also interested in identifying clinically relevant drug-drug interactions between novel prostate cancer medications and treatments frequently used by the average prostate cancer patient, who are typically older and have numerous comorbidities.
Odette Cancer Centre
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Niraparib in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and DNA repair gene defects (GALAHAD): a multicentre, open-label, phase 2 trial