Brain Tumor

Using artificial intelligence, researchers have discovered how to screen for genetic mutations in cancerous brain tumors in under 90 seconds — and possibly streamline the diagnosis and treatment of gliomas, a study suggests.

Michelle Kim, M.D., associate professor of radiation oncology at Michigan Medicine, has received a Research Specialist Award from the National Cancer Institute to pursue clinical research efforts at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and nationally. Kim’s focus is on clinical research for central nervous system (CNS) tumors.

Patients whose brain tumors have a mutated enzyme called IDH1 typically live longer than those without the mutation. But even as these tumors are initially less aggressive, they always come back. A key reason: The tumors are resistant to radiation treatment and are invasive.

Scientists at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center were optimistic when they identified a small molecule that blocked a key pathway in brain tumors. But there was a problem: How to get the inhibitor through the bloodstream and into the brain to reach the tumor. In collaboration with multiple labs, the teams fabricated a nanoparticle to contain the inhibitor, and the results were even better than expected.

Treatment for glioma has long relied on MRI imaging to track tumor markers and treatment response. But findings from a team at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, led by Carl Koschmann, M.D., pediatric neuro-oncologist at University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and researcher with the Chad Carr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center, suggest a new method could provide additional data about tumor markers before changes appear on an MRI, indicating possible strategies to help clinicians address this aggressive form of cancer.

A new clinical trial from a team at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center uses innovative basic science research methods to offer hope and a new treatment to glioblastoma patients. A collaborative team of Rogel physicians, led by Daniel Wahl, M.D., Ph.D., hopes that grounding their trial in rigorous and innovative biology from the very beginning will help this approach succeed where so many other potential glioblastoma treatments have failed.

A mutated gene affects growth of brain tumor cells in young adults, indicating sensitivity to a new treatment strategy, a team of researchers at the Rogel Cancer Center discovered. These findings, recently published in Cell Reports, present possibilities for more effective therapies for glioma patients with this gene mutation.

Metformin, a drug commonly prescribed against diabetes, holds promise against a rare type of childhood brain tumor in laboratory studies, an international team of researchers led by the Rogel Cancer Center report in Science Translational Medicine.

A common mutation in gliomas sensitizes them to immunotherapy, a finding which researchers believe could have broader therapeutic implications for all glioma patients.