Committed to Finding New Treatments for Glioblastoma
Our team of internationally acclaimed researchers and clinicians is experimenting with novel approaches to treat this deadly brain cancer
If you’re one of the 10,000 people in the USA diagnosed or a family member of one of the 17,000 patients that die each year from this horrific and incurable brain cancer, there is no cause with greater urgency. Nearly all patients diagnosed die within 12-18 months.
Some cancers, including brain cancer, have been historically underfunded despite the grim prognosis for those patients diagnosed. No doubt this is a direct corollary to why some cancers, like glioblastoma, have relatively few to no treatment options.
Research shows that 80% of the instances of recurrence, which are inevitable, appear in the tissue surrounding the resection cavity. The blood-brain barrier imposes biological limitations that make it easier for cancerous cells to invade the brain than it is for them to exit the brain and metastasize elsewhere. That sounds almost encouraging until you begin to discuss drug delivery: most therapeutics have high molecular weights beyond the range suitable for drug transport. Check point inhibitors which modulate biological pathways are generally effective in the treatment of most diseases: not so for glioblastoma.
“Glioblastoma requires an arsenal to combat and we view the combination of improved targeting with localized delivery of specific inhibitors designed to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, as a novel modality worthy of further exploration,” said Dr. Ekokobe Fonkem. GCT has recently acquired two patents for medicinal compounds that are known to cross the blood-brain barrier: PI3K and Vps34 act in mechanistically distinct manners as potent inhibitors of pathways commonly associated with cancers.
“I was proud to oversee the pre-clinical trials at Barrow Neurological Institute and looking forward to completing pre-clinical testing and entering phase I clinical trial at the Medical College of Wisconsin”
EKOKOBE FONKEM, DO
Scientific Advisory Board
“Global Cancer Technology is exploring new ways to fight deadly diseases."
- Dr. Santosh Kesari
World-renowned Neuro-Oncologist-John Wayne Cancer Insitute
The future of treatment
- Dr. Santosh Kesari
World-renowned Neuro-Oncologist-John Wayne Cancer Insitute
The other inhibitor acquired by GCT targets Vps34, a PI3K isoform known to affect cellular mobility and autophagy. Inhibitors of Vps34 have been shown to impede the movement of cancerous cells and their ability to induce the “suicide” of surrounding healthy cells.
Deducing how these inhibitors behave in glioblastoma patients requires further research. The ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier is, in of itself, a tremendous advantage.
To sum up – there is an urgent need for novel treatments of glioblastoma. And several are in development.
Cancer Treatment
Global Cancer Technology has numerous patents and other IP that might lead to breakthroughs in cancer therapy. The company is partnering with highly acclaimed academic institutions such as Barrow Neurological Institute, UCSD, along with industry leaders, to make these therapies available to patients as quickly as possible.
Blocking cancer in its tracks
“Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) is associated with cellular processes including cell death, protein synthesis and metabolism. PI3K has been shown to block this aberrant activity. Given the number of multimodal imaging methods that we are currently deploying to improve disease characterization and detection, particularly for brain cancers, we are eager to study how this inhibitor affects the progression of brain cancer.”