The Musella Foundation For Brain Tumor Research and Information, Inc is proud to announce that we partnered with the DIPG Collaborative to award a $100,000 pediatric brain tumor research grant to Dr. Adrian Krainer, of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in NY. This is the 90th brain tumor research grant that the Musella Foundation has funded, and it may be one of the most important. IF it works, the approach can be modified to treat many other types of tumors.
The researchers asked me for the grant right after our scheduled round of granting for the year. Our medical advisory board quickly approved it, giving it one of the highest scores we ever had, but we did not have the money to fund it. I approached the DIPG Collaborative and asked them to split the cost with us. The DIPG Collaborative quickly had their medical advisory board evaluate it and had over 20 independent foundations vote on it, with amazing speed! They understand the importance of not only finding and funding the best research, but doing it quickly. It was a pleasure to work with them.
The Clinical Implications of Inconsistently Methylated Results from Glioblastoma MGMT Testing by Replicate Methylation-Specific PCR. Excellent article. Apparently, when the MGMT methylation status test results show inconsistent methylation, it really should be thought of as being unmethylated. For background: MGMT is a gene that codes for an enzyme that repairs damage to the DNA caused by Temodar. If your MGMT genes are methylated, that means they are inactive and can not produce the repair enzyme. This makes Temodar work much better. However, if your MGMT is unmethylated (or apparently now - even inconclusive), the repair enzyme is produced which reverses the damage caused by Temodar, making it not really work.
This really didn't matter much until recently when a new drug, Val-083, was created which works similar to Temodar but on a different part of the DNA so that this repair enzyme can not reverse the damage. This drug is about to start phase 3 clinical trials. Worth considering for those whose test show unmethylated MGMT.
Orbus Therapeutics Announces Enrollment of First Patient in Phase 3 Trial in Late-Stage Brain Cancer Interesting drug. It is approved for uses other than cancer, so if this trial shows it works, access will be easy.
I am not sure about the statistics they use.. they say anaplastic astrocytoma was the largest subset of anaplastic glioma, but Glioblastoma multiforme is. They say 75% of the 20,000 cases of anaplastic glioma are 2,700 anaplastic astrocytomas.. but 75% of 20,000 is 15,000..
