Expertos en el agresivo tumor cerebral Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) se reúnen en la Universidad de Navarra
Experts on the aggressive brain tumor Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) meet at the University of Navarra
The CEIT has hosted a workshop on the occasion of the development of an ambitious project that focuses on multidisciplinary its study and the search for therapies.
The Center of programs of study and Technological Research of Guipuzcoa (CEIT ) of the University of Navarra has been involved in a project to search for therapeutic targets against Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) studying it in an interdisciplinary way from four perspectives: medical, biological, bioengineering and bioinformatics.
GBM is a nervous tumor located in the brain. It is diffuse and, therefore, difficult to remove. Its prognosis is very negative and, for practical purposes, it can be said to be almost incurable. "There is still no effective treatment and GBM is one of the brain tumors manager of more deaths per year", explains Ángel Rubio, researcher of CEIT and organizer of the workshop. "We know that the removal of the tumor extends the patient's life, but it usually results in a revival in the same place where the intervention was performed: we want to know why this effect on the tumor cells occurs,'' he adds. He and Elena de Juan, also a researcher at the Center, are involved in project, applying bioinformatics techniques to analyze the data genome of tumor cells. These methods make it possible to stratify the different tumors according to their gene expression at agreement .
The medical perspective is based on surgical techniques using fluorescence to differentiate the tumor from the brain tissue. The department of Neurosurgery of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra is a pioneer in this subject of interventions. On the other hand, the biological perspective is centered on animal models in which the disease is studied in order to then search for the aforementioned therapeutic targets. Finally, the influence of the mechanical characteristics of the substrate on which the cells are cultured has been studied from a bioengineering point of view.
In the workshop, the progress achieved in this project was presented and disseminated to the different partners and experts in the subject . Likewise, the three main objectives to be achieved in the future were set: the molecular classification of the different GBM, the search for therapeutic targets and the identification of the specific process that generates the relives.