University of Plymouth

The Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at the University of Plymouth is working to improve the diagnosis and treatment of children and adults with low-grade brain tumours, including schwannoma, meningioma and glioma.

The Centre is one of Europe’s leading research institutes for low-grade brain tumours and proactively works with national and international groups to swiftly translate their research into clinical benefit for patients.

Our Plymouth Centre was established in 2014 and is led by Professor Oliver Hanemann, Chair of Clinical Neurobiology at the University of Plymouth.

The multidisciplinary research team at Plymouth is working to understand how and why brain tumours initially develop, and why they sometimes transform into higher grades with much poorer prognoses for patients.

They are also developing non-invasive diagnostic methods and non-surgical treatments for patients with schwannoma and meningioma tumours. For these patients, surgery is the main option for biopsy and tumour treatment and this can carry a high risk of damage to the surrounding normal
nervous system tissue.

Meningioma research

  • How is the immune system involved in meningioma? 

    The immune system plays a large role in brain tumour biology, for the better or for the worse, including in meningiomas.  Researchers at the Centre are investigating the use drugs to reduce the effect of pro-tumour immune actions.

  • Can you test for meningiomas with a blood test? 

    Professor Oliver Hanemann’s team is developing a non-invasive blood test to help diagnose and classify meningiomas. This test could spare patients invasive biopsies, and the risk that they entail.

  • Can we target aspects of tumour metabolism? 

    Dr Leandro De Assis is investigating the role of an enzyme that is involved in cell metabolism and energy release in meningioma to determine if it can be targeted with drugs. 

  • How do meningioma cells become resistant to radiotherapy?  

    Dr Juri Na is leading the investigation into the mechanism of radio-resistance in meningioma cells, which makes the tumours less responsive to treatment over time. 

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Schwannoma research

  • Finding an effective drug treatment for schwannoma

    Professor David Parkinson and his team are investigating a non-surgical treatment for Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) patients who have developed schwannoma tumours.

  • How is the immune system involved in schwannomas? 

    The team at Plymouth is working to identify the role that immune cells play in schwannoma tumour development to identify a new cell type for targeted therapeutic treatment. 

  • Can ALDH enzymes be targeted in meningioma and schwannoma? 

    The team at Plymouth is
    investigating repurposed drugs that target ALDH enzyme activity as a treatment option for NF2-related meningioma and schwannoma tumours. 

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Glioma research

  • How do brain tumours initiate and develop?

    Dr Claudia Barros and her team are investigating early cellular and molecular events leading to the development of brain tumours. They are focused on understanding how normal neural cells become brain cancer stem cells that (re)form whole tumours and may also play a role in the transition of lower grade tumours to more aggressive brain tumour types.

Meet the research leads 

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