The Foundation is excited to share a final update from Dr. Han Shen, Research Fellow at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research (affiliate of the University of Sydney).
Dr. Shen’s research aimed to improve the radiosensitivity of diffuse midline gliomas (DMG), previously named diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG), by targeting hypoxia and metabolism. Dr. Shen’s research is funded by the Foundation through a 2019 Early Career Fellowship Grant, worth $345,000.
DMG is an intractable and incurable paediatric brain tumour. Radiotherapy is the only standard treatment available for DMG, but it only temporarily slows tumour growth. Almost all DMG tumours inevitably relapse following radiotherapy due to radio-resistance. This project aimed to overcome radio-esistance by targeting metabolism in DMG cells with repurposed FDA-approved drugs.
Dr. Shen has validated this therapeutic strategy and identified more potent drugs that could be used to improve the radiosensitivity of DMG. He tested this strategy in both in vitro and in vivo models of DMG. Dr. Shen has also developed a pipeline of high-throughput screening and carried out the first-ever drug screening assay which identified 15 FDA-approved drugs that could potentially be repurposed as radio-sensitising drugs to improve the treatment efficacy of DMG. Further studies and validation are currently underway to understand the underlying mechanism of action of these drugs used as radiosensitisers.
“The Cure Brain Cancer Foundation Early Career Fellowship was key to leading and completing this project. The impact of this project’s progress is of great significance because it forms the basis of clinical translation and will lead to a change in treatment regimen resulting in longer survival rates for the children with newly diagnosed DMG.”
