Doctors diagnose and prescribe treatment for brain tumors by studying, under a microscope, tumor tissue and cell samples obtained through invasive biopsy or surgery. Now, researchers at UCSD School of Medicine have shown that Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology has the potential to non-invasively characterize tumors and determine which of them may be responsive to specific forms of treatment, based on their specific molecular properties. The study will be published on line by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) the week of March 24.

“This approach reveals that, using existing imaging techniques, we can identify the molecular properties of tumors,” said Michael Kuo, M.D., assistant professor of interventional radiology at UCSD School of Medicine. Kuo and colleagues analyzed more than 2,000 genes that had previously been shown to have altered expression in Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tumors. They then mapped the correlations between gene expression and MRI features. … Continue Reading »

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have successfully tested a virus which targets only brain cancer cells in mice. The researchers implanted cancer cells into mice brains and then injected the mice with the virus. While the virus’s progress in the mice was tracked in real-time using florescent “markers,” the virus attacked and destroyed the brain tumors without affecting non-tumorous tissue. The original paper can be found in The Journal of Neuroscience.

I’ve read several papers recently where a virus has been used to selectively target and destroy tumor cells. I don’t know of a general surface protein or receptor that is common to all tumors; if there indeed isn’t one, then these viruses will have to be engineered to be specific for a particular type of cancer rather than having just one virus that would eradicate all cancer. It’s going to be an exciting next couple years in cancer research and treatment.