Recent Study FindsThat Revolutionary Approach For Treating Glioblastoma Works With Human Cells

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The researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have made advancement in the discovery of an effective treatment for glioblastoma - a common, aggressive brain cancer, in a rapid-fire series of breakthroughs in just less than a year. Their study describes how human stem cells, made from human skin cells, can inhibit the development of and kill human brain cancer.

This technique has been described as a monumental step toward clinical trials and real treatment, according to Eurekalert. The UNC-Chapel Hill team, led by an assistant professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Care Center, Shawn Hingtgen, used the technology last year to convert mouse skin cells to stem cells that could eliminate human brain cancer. It was able to increase the time of survival to 160-220 percent, depending on the type of tumor.

The researchers have not only displayed that the technique works well with human cells, but that it also works fast enough to assist patients whose median survival is less than 18 months with a 30 percent chance of survival beyond two years.

"Speed is essential....It used to take weeks to convert human skin cells to stem cells. But brain cancer patients do not have weeks and months to wait for us to generate these therapies. The new process we developed to create these stem cells is fast enough and simple enough to be used to treat a patient," Hingtgen said.

The researchers noted that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy has been the standard of care for the condition for three decades and has not changed with the tumor returning in almost every patient few months after the aforementioned processes. It invariably sends tiny tendrils to the surrounding brain tissue where drugs cannot reach them and surgeons cannot see them, making it almost impossible to remove all of the cancer cells.

The researchers believe that the search for something better is necessary. The most important aspect of the treatment is "skin flipping" -a technology that creates neural stem cells from skin cells which won a Nobel Prize in 2012. The authors started by harvesting fibroblasts - skin cells responsible for producing collagen and connective tissue, from the patient and reprogramming the cells to become something known as induced neural stem cells that have the ability to home in cancer cells in the brain.

However, stem cells by themselves can only find a tumor and bump against it but do not have the ability to kill it. This means the team had to engineer them so that they would carry therapeutic agents that the cells can launch at the tumor to eliminate it, according to Science Daily.

The stem cells have the capability to carry a protein that activates an inert substance called a "prodrug" which is administered to patients. The cells will then generate a small halo of drug that is located around the stem cell, instead of circulating throughout the patient's body, thus, reducing unwanted side effects. The researchers published their findings in the Feb. 1 issue of Science Translational Medicine.