A new study from Mayo Clinic published in Nature Communications Medicine reports preclinical results for a nanotherapy designed to improve drug delivery in glioblastoma (GBM). The approach uses liposomal nanoparticles engineered to cross the blood-brain barrier and co-deliver vinorelbine with either everolimus or rapamycin directly to tumor cells. The combination is designed to inhibit tumor growth signaling pathways and impair DNA repair, thereby increasing sensitivity to radiation.
The therapy was tested in patient-derived glioblastoma models, including orthotopic mouse models. When combined with radiation, the treatment more than doubled survival in mice compared with untreated controls, with the vinorelbine-rapamycin arm showing the strongest overall survival benefit.
While this therapy is still in early development, liposome-based drug delivery systems are an active area of GBM research and we hope to see this work translated to human trials in the future.
