The fight against glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, has been boosted by new research conducted at Washington University that has developed nasal drops which can travel through nerves found in the nose and reach different parts of our central nervous system in order to fight the glioblastoma cells there.
Preliminary results revealed that this novel medication safely reached the intended target and protected the mice against the fatal tumors.
Alexander Stegh, a neurosurgeon at the university, explains that their approach offers hope for more effective and safer treatments for this deadliest brain cancer and possibly other cancers that are resistant to the immune system. He adds that their preliminary study marks a major step towards the clinical application of the treatment.
Glioblastoma is difficult to detect early, very aggressive and deactivates the body’s normal immune system. These attributes make the tumors very difficult to treat using the existing cancer therapies available.
It is also very difficult to reach glioblastoma tumors since they form within the brain as well as in different other locations of the central nervous system, which is delicate. The fact that they spread rapidly in various locations also compounds the task of combating the tumors. When a person develops this brain cancer, their brain function is impaired due to nearby healthy tissue being compressed and inflamed. The tumors also hijack the blood supply of the surrounding brain tissue.
Previously, scientists have made attempts to activate interferon genes (STING genes) to alert patients’ immune systems about glioblastoma’s presence. These genes usually look out for viral infections and prime the immune system to attack those viruses. However, drugs designed to activate interferon genes to identify tumor cells break down rapidly and this makes it necessary to administer the drugs repeatedly, yet the procedure is highly invasive and risky.
The Washington University team sought a simpler way to get these medications to their target sites by leveraging nanotechnology. They aimed at sparing patients from having to undergo the repeated invasive procedures through which drugs are administered into brain tumors.
Their solution involved wrapping the STING-activating genetic material into spheres that were wrapped around gold nanoparticle cores so that the lifespan of the molecules could be extended. Mice with glioblastoma were treated using these carrier nanoparticles and results showed that the cancer’s growth was inhibited.
The findings provide proof of concept regarding the viability of spherical nucleic acids in activating the immune system against this brain cancer and possibly other malignancies that exhibit similar characteristics.
More needs to be done before the approach can be tested in humans, and it is especially important to pair these nanoparticles with other treatments since cancer is notorious for quickly mutating in order to evade any new obstacle that it encounters.
Therapeutics being developed by companies like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) against glioblastoma and other central nervous system cancers could therefore be valuable additional weapons in the toolkit against brain cancer on their own or in combination with other therapies.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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