The Musella Foundation awarded a $25,000 brain tumor research grant to Dr. Nduom and Dr. Carbonell for the project "Utilization of a First-in-Class Anti-CD29 Therapy (OS2966) to Unleash the Potential of Immune Checkpoint Therapy for Treatment of Glioblastoma".

 

Checkpoint inhibitors are a new type of cancer immunotherapy that have worked wonders in other cancers but so far have failed with Glioblastomas.   Cancer cells are smart and trick the body's immune system by stimulating checkpoints that tell the immune system to stand down and not attack the tumor.  Checkpoint inhibitors block these signals and restore the body's ability to attack the cancer. This works for many types of cancer, but Glioblastomas are special. It is thought that a population of cells called macrophages invade the area of the tumor and prevent the immune system from attacking.  This new drug, OS2966, theoretically could inhibit these macrophages and allow the immune checkpoint inhibitors to work even with Glioblastoma. This project will test this theory in a mouse model, and if successful, be translated immediately into a human clinical trial!

 

If this works, it will have an immediate impact on our patients. In the year 2000, patients with advanced melanoma only survived 6 months.  Now with the latest checkpoint inhibitors more than half of them are alive at 5 years.  Hopefully research like the project funded here will bring some of that immunotherapy success to Glioblastomas!