Since 1979, the Department of Cancer Endocrinology has recorded a number of scientific achievements:

• First to discover that dihydrotestosterone is the most potent form of male sex hormone (androgen) for stimulating growth of the prostate.
• Established quantitative methods for measuring the relative potency of anti-hormones useful for prostate cancer therapy.
• Discovered that the prostate contains multiple forms of 5a -reductase, an enzyme which converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and has a key role in the development of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
• Refined the "Shionogi experimental model" for studying androgen-dependent cancers in vivo.
• Development and application of the Androcur/DES hormonal treatment for prostate cancer which reduced treatment costs in British Columbia by $5-7 million per year since 1986.
• The invention and application of the Intermittent Androgen Suppression Therapy for prostate cancer, reducing treatment costs and vastly improving the quality of life of patients.
• Developed an in vitro transcription assay for studying transcriptional regulation of prostate specific antigen (PSA) and androgen receptor activity.
• Identified two alternative pathways, resulting in androgen-independent PSA gene expression, which may underlie the development of resistance of prostate cancers to androgen withdrawal therapy.
• Determined the unique DNA sequences required for androgen regulation of genes.
• Developed androgen receptor mutants for the study of androgen action.
• Elucidated the mechanism of cross-talk between the AP-1 and androgen receptor signal transduction pathways.
• Developed the first in vitro bioassay for lactogenic hormones, including prolactin and human growth hormone. This highly sensitive and specific system is also widely applied for elucidating prolactin mitogenic signal transduction pathways and structure-function analysis.
• Developed a new model for studying the progression of lymphoid malignancies to metastatic and hormone-independent phenotypes.
• Identified a novel molecular target, potentially useful for the treatment of T-cell cancers.
• Cloned a melanoma gene and developed an immunoassay for its protein product which is also potentially a prostate cancer tumour marker.