A research project seeks 300 Zaragoza schoolchildren to promote healthy living habits
14 July 2023ALK Positive/LCRF Lung Cancer Research Award on Innovative Therapeutic Strategies to Treat ALK Positive Lung Cancers
17 July 2023
The Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) is looking for a tmost effective treatment against medulloblastoma, the most common brain tumor in children with cancer. This has a survival rate of between 60% and 80% of diagnosed patients, depending on the subtype of tumor and the early diagnosis. It is usually found in the cerebellum, a part of the brain responsible for such vital functions as movement, balance and muscle coordination.
The project is being developed the Advanced Therapies Research Group of the IIS Aragón, under the direction of the scientist Pilar Martín Duque (tenured professor at the University of Zaragoza), who has received a grant of 60.000 euros from the Association of Parents of Oncological Children of Aragon (Aspanoa) to start this project.
Given that current therapies are limited, the proposal is to develop a more direct treatment against this tumor, which is more effective in the application of the drug and avoids the side effects caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy in an area as sensitive as the brain.
These scientists have confirmed in previous projects that There are vesicles from stem cells that are directed by default to repair damaged areas of the body.. And what they intend is to use them as a vehicle to provide localized radiotherapy to the medulloblastoma itself.
In this sense, they want to inject these vesicles in mice with this brain tumor to see if they directly target medulloblastoma. “We have very promising preliminary results in animals with cervical, ovarian, colon and glioblastoma tumors,” explains Dr. Martín Duque, “so we hope that they will also behave in the same way in this type of cancer.”
These vesicles contain a gene that converts them into radioisotope accumulators, so that, if iodine were injected into the patient, it would automatically be retained in the vesicles, which would be already attached to the tumor. “We would thus be able to provide highly localized radiotherapy to the medulloblastoma itself, therefore being more effective in administering the treatment and eliminating a large part of the side effects,” explains the researcher.
Diagnosis and treatment almost at the same time
One of the virtues of this project is that would allow diagnosing and treating the tumor practically at the same time. In fact, researchers are going to try injecting iodine124 -which will allow them to know the stage of the tumor and whether the vesicles have migrated appropriately towards it- and, subsequently, iodine131, which is the treatment currently given to patients with thyroid cancer. “The amount of iodine that would have to be given to patients would be much lower than the current amount,” adds Martín Duque, “since the vesicles would allow the entire treatment to go directly to the tumor, and not accumulate in unwanted areas of the body, as happens. currently".
Pilar Martín Duque points out that she is “very excited” to start this project because one of her childhood wishes was to be a pediatric oncologist: “Being able to help children with cancer from the laboratory fulfills me a lot. “I am happy to contribute my grain of sand.” In this challenge that she now begins, she will be accompanied by María Royo, head of the Microscopy and Imaging Service of the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences (IACS); Manuela Lanzuela, specialist physician at the Radiation Oncology Unit of the Miguel Servet Hospital; Alba de Martino, director of the Production, Knowledge and Innovation Area of the IACS and the researchers Belén Azanza, Ana Redrado, Andrea García and Tania Albuquerque, who work in the Research Group.
