An Atlas of the Human Prostate Across Ancestries

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in people with prostates. Specifically, African American people have the highest risk of development and mortality from prostate cancer. Due to historical exclusion of people of African, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander ancestries in large-scale scientific studies, scientific understanding of the molecular profiles in healthy and diseased tissues from these populations is limited.

This project aims to leverage state-of-the-art techniques to characterize cellular heterogeneity across ancestries and ages in the healthy prostate. Specifically, this team will define the transcriptomic, epigenomic, and spatial features of prostate cell types, from pre-puberty to adolescence to the elderly, within individuals and across ancestrally diverse groups such as African American, Afro-Caribbean, Latinx, and Asian. The team will use a community engagement framework to maximize the impact of the findings and serve as a resource on the role that cells play in health and diseased tissues for the public, the donors, and the clinical and scientific communities.