A research team led by Dr Claudia Barros, from the Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine and Dentistry and its Brain Tumour Research-funded Centre of Excellence, has secured funding from the Brain Research Trust, which will help to expose novel molecules and their modes of action responsible for the initiation and growth of aggressive GBM brain tumours.
With the collaboration of colleagues from Derriford Hospital and the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Edinburgh, Dr Barros will investigate the cellular changes leading to the development of glioblastoma brain tumours - making vital steps in the bid to understand how they are formed and why they are prone to returning.
Using a brain tumour model in Drosophila fruit flies - which were also used by the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine - the researchers recapitulate hallmarks of human brain cancer stem cell and tumour development. In this model, Dr Barros's team visualises cancer stem cells at the time they originate inside intact brain, and can identify early cellular and molecular changes.
"We hope to contribute to a major current area in brain tumour research that underlies the questions of 'How do brain tumours form, and why do they frequently re-appear after treatment?'" Dr Barros said.