New Drug Discovery Can Stop Spread Of Brain Cancer

The tissues in our bodies majorly are composed of fluid. It flows around cells and is important for normal functioning of body. But in some incidents, this fluid might be doing more injury than good. In individuals having glioblastoma, the most dangerous type of brain cancer, this fluid has a very extreme pressure, leading it to flow faster and spread cancer cells. And a common cancer treatment, which induces drug with a catheter directly into the tumor, can make this fluid flow even quicker.

A group of scientists at Virginia Tech, spearheaded by Jennifer Munson (an assistant professor in the College of Engineering in the Department of Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering) might have discovered a solution to halting this predictable spread of cancer cell. In an article posted this week in Scientific Reports, postdoctoral scientists at Virginia Tech and lead author, Chase Cornelison, details the employment of a drug (that Munson’s group discovered) can halt the way cancer cells react to flow of fluid. This work is fraction of a five-year Munson-controlled research grant initiative all over different universities.

On a related note, experts in the U.K. plan to exploit the Zika virus trying to destroy brain tumor cells in tests that they say can bring about new means to battle against a violent kind of cancer. The study will aim on glioblastoma, the most ordinary type of brain cancer, which has a 5-year rate of survival with hardly 5%.

Zika results in harsh disability in offspring by destroying the growing stem cells in the brain; but in grownups, whose brains are completely developed, it often results in simply gentle symptoms similar to that of flu. In glioblastoma, the cells of cancer are much alike to those in the growing brain, signifying that the virus can be utilized to aim them while sparing usual brain tissue of adult.