Glioblastoma is a complex, deadly, and treatment-resistant brain tumor.
Despite all efforts, no significant advances have been made in the last decades and the diagnosis of glioblastoma remains a death sentence.
Treatment options for glioblastoma are limited. Surgery and radiation are the primary choices of treatment, but remnant cancer cells that cannot be removed grow into larger and more aggressive tumors. Therefore, post-surgical chemotherapy is critical. However, most chemotherapeutic drugs do not cross the blood-brain and fail to eradicate the tumor cells.
The main problem for successful drug delivery into the brain and tumor tissue is a group of gatekeepers at the blood-brain and blood-tumor barriers. These gatekeepers limit chemotherapeutic drugs from entering the brain and reaching the tumor.
To overcome this clinical obstacle, we focus on targeting a signaling mechanism to turn off these gatekeepers and are currently testing this strategy. Our goal is to increase brain uptake of chemotherapeutic drugs to improve glioblastoma chemotherapy.