University of South Florida's Dr. George Blanck and his team may have discovered a way to have a more accurate prognosis for those with different types of brain cancer, including childhood neuroblastoma. This method may help clinicians optimize treatment plans for different, previously unknown subsets of patients.
Dr. Blanck and his team first discovered the correlation between tumors with a a high level of tau strongly associated with an increase in disease free survival for both Low-Grade Glioma (LGG) and neuroblastoma patients. His team was able to confirm the hypothesis that the tumor cells were dying more often when high levels of the protein tau were present. This suggests that such brain cancer patients with low levels of tau may be ideal candidates for treatments that are known to raise tau levels.
After Dr. Blanck's work was published, the discovery was made and reproduced by a group in Spain, validating his team's findings. Dr. Blanck notes that it is a requirement of the research business to wait for reproducibility of the work, and now that that is done, this discovery is ready for the next step.
The hope is that many areas could take advantage of this valuable biomarker data. For future goals, this discovery could be applicable to physicians in being able to stratify patients. This would also be useful for clinical trials testing new drugs, helping to subdivide patients based on the level of tau present and potentially with regard to who may best respond to a new drug. Finally, those working in fields that study tau function could use this information for brain cancer drug design and therapy.
Tech Tour Video: Cheryl Abrigo interviews Dr. George Blanck about his technology
To learn more about this technology or how to partner, please contact ttoinfo@usf.edu.
Credits:
Created with an image by stockdevil - "MRI brain : Brain tumor at right parietal lobe"