Latest News

• Potent in vivo efficacy of oral gallium maltolate in treatment-resistant glioblastoma        

   Proud to say that the Musella Foundation helped to fund this project!    It is a new approach to brain tumor treatment targeting the iron metabolism in the cells.  The conclusion of this study in lab rats was:  "Monotherapy with the iron-mimetic GaM profoundly inhibits trGBM growth and significantly extends disease-specific survival in vivo."  This is in a clinical trial in recurrent Glioblastoma now.  It is an oral drug apparently without major side effects. We will keep a close eye on this.

  
  
• The safety and accuracy of intratumoral catheter placement to infuse viral immunotherapies in children with malignant brain tumors: a multi-institutional study        

  The Musella Foundation helped fund this important research project.  They reported on the safety and accuracy of placing catheters into pediatric brain tumors to be used to infuse treatments,  and found only 1 complications  (which was corrected by suturing a tear in the dura matter) out of 49 catheter placements, and the accuracy was over 93% of the catheters were placed correctly. Not perfect but much better than reports from 10 years ago where less than half were placed correctly!

  
  
• dCas9/CRISPR-based methylation of O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase enhances chemosensitivity to temozolomide in malignant glioma        

   This is brilliant work.  A huge problem we have is that when a patient is diagnosed with having MGMT Unmethylated Glioblastoma, it is much less likely that Temozolomide will help, and they have been shown to have a much shorter survival time.  These researcher figured out a way to convert MGMT unmethylated tumors into MGMT methylated tumors, using a viral delivery of CRISPR.  It is still only pre-clinical but a new approach that should help a lot!

  
  
• Glioblastoma evolution and heterogeneity from a 3D whole-tumor perspective        

   Very interesting research.  They took many biopsies from each tumor and mapped them. They found that there is a lot of variation between areas of the tumor, to the point where it almost doesn't make sense to use a targeted treatment based on just a single biopsy.  Even MGMT methylations levels varied a lot from different areas of the tumor.  This reinforces the concept used by DCVAX - which uses tumor lysate to try to make the vaccine against all of the targets found throughout the tumor instead of trying to pick the one or handful of most important targets from a single biopsy.

  
  
• Research shows deadly brain cancer can mimic healthy neurons        

  One of the keys to the breakthrough is understanding what we are fighting. This line of research is shedding light on why the tumor becomes resistant to treatment and offers a solution.   The cure  might not be the drug they mention but the approach they use may lead to a major breakthrough.  They are working on creating a test that will find the best available drug for each tumor.  Excellent work.

  
  
• A biologically effective dose comparison between radiosurgery and collagen tile brachytherapy for post-operative treatment of a brain metastasis resection cavity        

   This poster compares GammTile to stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastasis and found that the GammaTiles covered the tumor area better with less radiation to the normal brain.

  
  
• Musella Foundation awards first grant of 2024!        

   This is an interesting research project.   In theory, PI3Kinase Inhibitors  should work well on brain tumors but in the past, results were not great.  This project uses a new drug that can cross the blood brain barrier, and combines it with an immune checkpoint inhibitor.   Checkpoint inhibitors by themselves have not shown much success in brain tumors either. The research proposes that this drug will increase the immunogenicity of  the tumor, allowing the immune checkpoint inhibitor to work better.