Glioblastoma Research Projects
MOON SHOTS PROGRAM
Glioblastoma Flagship Projects
Through its flagship projects, the Glioblastoma Moon Shot® is conducting impactful research in the lab and clinic to improve the lives of patients. Research efforts aim to understand glioblastoma at a molecular level, develop innovative new therapies and conduct transformational clinical trials.
Discover
Understanding the molecular landscape of the disease
Through this flagship, we are working to discover and understand fundamental biological processes that drive glioblastoma in order to develop new therapies and biomarkers. We believe that a more complete understanding of the biology of glioblastoma will reveal new vulnerabilities that can be used to better treat our patients and markers to help us better predict patients that may or may not benefit from a given treatment.
The goals of this flagship are to:
- Define the evolution of tumors over the course of treatment through comprehensive genomic and immune profiling
- Map the immune interactions in the tumor microenvironment and discover how these interactions affect responses to therapy
- Collect samples from patients over the course of treatment to identify and analyze new biomarkers associated with response or resistance to therapy
Develop
Advancing ideas into innovative therapies
This flagship is testing a variety of novel treatment approaches in the lab in order to advance them into clinical trials to benefit patients who need them. By carefully testing these new treatments in preclinical models and developing assays to test their effectiveness in patients, we can identify the most promising options to bring to early stage clinical trials.
The goals of this flagship are to:
- Investigate the potential of using immune cells isolated from the tumor, called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), to treat glioblastoma
- Test the ability of natural killer (NK) cells, a type of immune cell, to successfully overcome immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment and eradicate glioblastoma
Implement
Conducting transformational clinical trials
The focus of this flagship is to conduct innovative “window-of-opportunity” trials of MD Anderson-developed treatments that have been tested extensively in the laboratory. These trials utilize biopsies or surgical samples in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment being tested. Through this unique trial design, we’re able to quickly test if the therapy is doing what it’s designed to do, enabling us to only move forward with the most promising options.
The goal of this flagship is to:
- Investigate a novel treatment using bone marrow-derive mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to deliver a cancer-killing virus called Delta-24-RGD to the tumor