A University of Dundee researcher has been awarded nearly £400,000 to develop a potential new treatment for one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer.
Dr Sourav Banerjee (pictured) received the grant from The Brain Tumour Charity to develop a novel molecule designed to simultaneously block two major cancer-promoting pathways that drive the growth of glioblastoma.
Dr Banerjee, from the University of Dundee’s Faculty of Health, is leading the project with long-standing collaborator Professor Christopher Hulme at the University of Arizona and the Dundee-Arizona spin-out company Branch Therapeutics.
The 18-month milestone-driven, drug development programme is also supported by the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centres at Edinburgh and Glasgow and the University of Arizona Cancer Center.
Dr Banerjee said: “This award is an exciting milestone in our long-term effort to develop a completely new treatment for glioblastoma. Patients urgently need better treatment options, and we are cautiously optimistic that our approach could ultimately make a meaningful difference to survival.
“Our ambition is to take this molecule as far as possible towards the clinic and, ultimately, towards first-in-human trials. It is a challenging journey, but this funding gives us an important opportunity to move the programme forward.”
Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain tumour with a devastating prognosis. Patients typically survive just nine to 12 months following diagnosis. Significant advances in drug treatment have remained elusive, with the last major drug approved for glioblastoma more than two decades ago.
The team will test and optimise a late-stage single, orally available molecule capable of crossing the blood–brain barrier and simultaneously targeting the two cancer-driving pathways. By hitting both pathways at once, the researchers hope to develop a treatment that can safely impede tumour growth.
The drug prototype has already doubled survival in mice carrying human glioblastoma tumours. The next goal is to optimise the drug and generate the evidence needed to move towards first-in-human clinical trials.
