Clinical Challenge
Brain Tumour UK, The Diana Ford Trust and Charlie's Challenge fund essential research equipmentby Professor John Darling, University of Wolverhampton
Glioblastoma multiforme represents a clinical
challenge and there is a clear need for more effective therapies.
For many years doctors treating cancer have tried to develop "magic bullets" that
is, drugs that home in on cancer cells and kill them
but don't damage normal cells like those in the bone
marrow. However, "magic bullets" have
proved elusive.
A research group at the Research Institute in Healthcare Science, University of Wolverhampton , is developing small molecules called peptides to target a wide variety of toxins specifically to brain tumour cells. Peptides are simply two or more amino acids, the building block of proteins, joined together.
Proteins like monoclonal antibodies or growth factors can be used to target cancer cells, but they don't penetrate brain tumours well and can trigger an immune response, which limits their usefulness.
However, short peptides, perhaps a dozen or two amino acids in length, can be engineered in the laboratory to interact specifically with receptors present on tumour cells. These small so-called 'homing' peptides penetrate tissue well and are too small to trigger an immune response. A wide variety of toxic cargoes can be attached to these homing peptides. Initial results with this system indicate that this approach actually produces greater cell killing in the lab than using the cytotoxic cargo alone.
Traditionally, the way to produce small quantities of peptide for pilot studies is for a scientist to synthesise these by hand adding one amino acid after another. This often takes several days and is a real bottleneck, impeding progress. However, Brain Tumour UK has been successful in securing a donation from Waitrose plc, and in partnership with Charlie's Challenge and the Diana Ford Trust are buying a microwave peptide synthesiser for the research group.
This can be programmed to produce particular peptides within an hour or two. Even better news is that when a promising peptide has been identified, the microwave synthesiser can be upgraded to produce large quantities of peptide suitable for testing in patients with brain tumours.
Brain Tumour Research in the UK funded by Other Charities
For other essential information regarding UK Brain Tumour Research please follow these links or contact the charities below.
| Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust | www.braintumourtrust.co.uk |
largest single funder of laboratory based brain tumour research in the UK | |
| SDBTT Astro Fund | www.astrofund.org.uk | ||
| Ali's Dream | www.alisdream.org.uk | ||
| Ellie Savage Memorial Trust |
www.elliestrust.org | ||
| Brain Tumour Research Campaign | www.wayahead-btrc.org | 020 8601 2402 | |
Diana Ford Trust |
01494 675 586 |
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Andrea's Gift |
01274 777 700 |
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| Brain Tumour Action | www.braintumouraction.org.uk | ||
