Every year, our Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence undergo a rigorous Annual Review designed to measure progress and ensure funds are spent wisely.
As well as being a chance to check on progress and future plans, these reviews offer the opportunity to illustrate our Research Centres’ impact and influence, and provide an idea of what increased funding could achieve.
We are pleased to report that each of our Centres has made good progress in the last year, with the review process revealing that among other achievements:
- Our Centre at Imperial College London has published a significant paper on how a drug which depletes the amino acid arginine could make glioblastoma (GBM) more susceptible to radiotherapy; recruited patients onto the Tru-Blood trial validating detection of circulating tumour cells
- Queen Mary University of London our Centre has produced five original publications including research in Neuro-Oncology, focused on medulloblastoma - the most common high-grade brain tumour in under 16s – which showed that those with a specific sub-type of the disease could benefit from a new combination of treatment
- Researchers at our Centre at the University of Plymouth have Published the characterisation and targeting HERVK in schwannoma and meningioma in a high impact journal and progressed research into meningioma, potentially translating from bench to bedside, for a condition for which currently the only treatment is surgery and radiotherapy
- Our tissue bank facility BRAIN UK has provided researchers in the UK and overseas with samples for 72 tumour studies resulting in 54 publications; built a database containing more than 140,000 biopsies and almost 37,000 post-mortem samples
Dr Karen Noble, Director of Research, Policy and Innovation, said: “We are extremely proud of this ground-breaking work funded by Brain Tumour Research and congratulate all those who have enabled this progress to be made.”
Related reading:
If you found this story interesting or helpful, sign up to our weekly e-news and keep up to date with all the latest from Brain Tumour Research.