Developing a “one-two punch” treatment paradigm for targeting glioblastoma
Project Overview
By profiling the protein expression signatures of multiple patient-derived glioblastoma cell lines, we recently identified a major signalling pathway involved in glioblastoma cell migration. Excitingly, we showed that chemical inhibition of a key protein involved in regulating this pathway significantly reduced the infiltration of three glioblastoma cell lines. While inhibiting the infiltration of tumour cells is a key first step to stopping this deadly disease, this initial anchoring of tumour cells to surrounding tissue did not eliminate tumour cells. Therefore, this project looks to develop this paradigm into a potential new “one two punch” treatment for glioblastoma by identifying supplemental drugs that compromise tumour cell viability following chemical inhibition of the migration-related regulatory protein. This project aims to characterize the response of a diverse cohort of 20 patient-derived glioblastoma cell lines to this migration inhibitor (“first punch”) and evaluate whether the addition of “second punch” drugs can selectively kill glioblastoma cells.
Principal Investigator
Rifat Sajid , University Health Network
Partners and Donors
Cancer Research Society