Brain cancer

The lamprey is not something you’d normally want anywhere near your brain. But now, researchers have used molecules taken from the freaky fish’s immune system to deliver drugs inside the body – and even managed to sneak them into the brain.

A new imaging technique designed to help surgeons identify the location of malignant brain tumors during surgery is showing promising early clinical trial results. The technique combines a near-infrared camera with a special imaging agent synthesized from an amino acid found in scorpion venom.

After over 10 years of research, the National Toxicology Program has released its report into the effects of radio frequency radiation on animals. The results suggest that high levels of exposure can cause some cancers, however the conclusions have been labeled as “weak” and unrelatable to humans.

The blood-brain barrier is an effective shield against infection, but it’s not so helpful when you’re trying to get drugs in there. Nasal sprays could bypass the barrier, and now researchers have developed a way to use ultrasound pulses to drive the drugs to where in the brain they’re needed.

Researchers have recently revealed the results from a Phase 1 trial investigating the efficacy of an experimental treatment using a genetically modified poliovirus to attack a lethal form of brain cancer. The results are mildly promising but don’t suggest this will be a magic bullet of a treatment.

Those diagnosed with glioblastoma don’t have many treatment options – and usually a median life expectancy of just over a year. Now, researchers at MIT have developed nanoparticles that could provide hope, crossing the blood-brain barrier and delivering two types of drugs to fight tumors.

New research into CAR-T cell therapy has revealed crucial mechanisms that could help the immunotherapy technique, which is currently only effective against blood cancers, be adapted for the treatment of brain tumors and other forms of solid cancers.

Remarkable new research from scientists in the UK has shown how a naturally occurring, and mostly harmless, virus is being recruited into attacking brain cancer and enhancing the tumor-targeting abilities of the body’s own immune system.

For well over half a century, scientists have been working to harness the cell-destroying power of viruses in the battle against cancer. The latest addition to this arsenal comes from an unlikely source, the relatively new Zika virus, which could offer a new way to fight deadly brain cancers.

Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of brain cancer that kills most patients within two years of diagnosis. Tests on mice last year showed that stem cells can hunt down the tumors, and now the process has worked with human cells, and can be quick enough to beat the ticking time-bombs.

Researchers have built a hydrogel scaffold said to mimic the environment found within the human breast. And by using it to grow real mammary tissue, scientists are hoping to uncover new insights into how tumors spread through this part of the body.

In what it labels as a first, a team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has built on previous technology to transform adult skin cells into cancer-killing stem cells that seek and destroy brain tumors.