| Project title | Powering and Arming the Immune System to Combat Glioblastoma |
|---|---|
Grant Amount | $200,000 |
Institution | The University of Queensland |
Investigator Team | Principal investigators Dr. Roberta Mazzieri, Prof. Riccardo Dolcetti and Prof. Ranjeny Thomas |
Grant Type | 2017 Innovation Grant |
Years | 2017 – 2020 |
Glioblastoma is the most common and most aggressive type of brain tumour. Available therapies aim to slow cancer progression and relieve symptoms, but are unable to cure the cancer or to substantially improve the patient’s quality of life for very long.
A new type of cancer treatment, called “immunotherapy”, stimulates patients’ immune system to fight their cancer. The proposed research investigates strategies to harness the power of immunotherapy to improve glioblastoma treatment.
Dr. Mazzieri and her team will investigate new and innovative approaches to overcome obstacles to using immunotherapy in glioblastoma. They will use genetic engineering technology to reprogram a class of cell (which normally inhibits immune cells) to produce a powerful immune stimulant within glioblastoma tumours. Moreover, to make glioblastoma tumours more visible to the immune system, the research team will apply a technique to kill tumour cells in a manner that causes them to release powerful immune-activating signals. These immune-activating signals will then be delivered to the patient using new nanotechnologies.
“This research has high potential to identify new treatments for glioblastoma with the ability to substantially prolong quality survival and possibly even cure some patients.”
Dr. Roberta Mazzieri
Progress: First annual progress report (May 2019)
Our preliminary results suggest that the new and enhanced vaccine platform developed in our laboratories is indeed able to make glioblastomas more visible to the immune system and to delay its growth. Moreover, we have preliminary evidence showing that our cellular therapy is able to deliver a potent immune stimulator to the tumour and the tumor only. This tumor restricted delivery of IFN is an essential requirement to reduce brain toxicity known to be associated with standard systemic IFN therapies. Moreover, delivery of IFN via intratumoral injection of genetically engineered cells resulted in tumor growth delay. Therefore, this new therapy has the potential to provide superior safety and improved side-effect profiles then existing treatments, thereby reducing the impact of glioblastoma therapy on patients’ quality of life and that of their families and carers.
We will now optimize these new strategies and investigate whether their combination will result in efficient and long-lasting immune responses able to prolong survival or cure glioblastoma in relevant preclinical tumor models.
We are extremely grateful to Cure Brain Cancer Foundation for understanding that new ideas need special support to progress into an established project. The Innovation grant is currently allowing us to collect strong data supporting the efficacy and feasibility of a completely new combination therapy for Glioblastoma. These data will be fundamental for evaluating the future development of the therapy.