According
to a recent article in The Chronicle, “A new immunotherapy treatment created by
Duke researchers holds promise for patients with aggressive brain tumors.
The
researchers engineered a protein—bispecific T-cell engager or BiTE—that attacks
the cancerous cells while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. The protein
locates the tumor and attracts white blood cells called T-cells to attack the
cancerous cells. The therapy was successful in six out of eight mice with brain
tumors.“
As
you can imagine, the article reports that “The scientists’ goal is to adapt the
new treatment for humans with malignant brain tumors such as glioblastoma.”
According to Dr. Darrell Bigner, Director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain
Tumor Center, if the drug succeeds in clinical trials, it could change the
current standard of care for these types of tumors.
How
so? Bigner says that “If [this treatment] is as successful in patients as it
has been in the mice, it would be a completely new method of treating brain
tumors and would potentially be much more effective than our current treatments
and lack the toxicity of the current treatments.”
Being
just vaguely familiar with current glioblastoma
treatments, but being somewhat familiar with GBM blogger comments on
sites like Inspire, any improvement would be of huge value.
Here’s
a link to the article in The Chronicle:
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke-scientists-develop-potential-treatment-brain
And
for you scientists/researchers/high IQ types, here’s a link to the abstract of
the published paper, “Pattern of retinoblastoma pathway inactivation dictates
response to CDK4/6 inhibition in GBM” from PNS, Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America -
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/1/270.abstract?sid=6cc641c2-d4c0-4620-9aa3-9138fb8bd001
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