The heavyweight article focuses on new advances in the study of glioblastoma

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc0221 Like Peter Pan, the little-haired character in Disney's classic animated film "Little Flying Man," some cells never grow up.
in cancer, undifferentiated stem cells may help tumors such as glioblastoma become more aggressive than other forms of disease.
certain genes should help cells mature, but not young stem cells.
this requires significant changes in all microRNA --- produced in microRNAome --- cells, which control when and where genes are turned on and off.
many microRNAs are tumor-suppressing; in cancer, microRNA groups are disturbed and destroyed.
in a new study, researchers from research institutions such as the Bregan Women's Hospital in the United States pinpointed a key change in an enzyme called DIKER, which has a series of effects on this microRNA group.
they identified the main actors, circ2082 (a ring RNA) and RBM3 (an RNA binding protein), which form a complex with DIKER that allows them to remain in the nucleus of glioblastoma cells, thus destroying the microRNA group in the cytoste.
study was recently published in the journal Science Advances.
researchers say we're always trying to find a magic cure for cancer.
problem is that it can only attack a small number of tumor cells because other tumor cells lack the corresponding targets.
we're looking for common weaknesses -- what common weaknesses can we target? With this discovery, we can target something upstream: very common targets at the pergenitary level.
2 (Xinhua) -- The fusion of cytokines and antibodies promises to treat glioblastoma doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.abb2311 In a new study, researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland and others have found that fusing cytokines with antibodies is an effective treatment for glioblastoma in mice.
study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, described their technique and tested its effects using mouse models.
glioblastoma is a cancerous brain tumor that is extremely difficult to treat.
surgery to remove it is difficult and full of side effects, and the effects of the drug are minimal.
recent years, scientists have tried and failed to use drugs that alert the immune system to the presence of tumors.
the new study, the researchers tried another method -- fusing cytokines with antibodies to attack tumors.
they hope the combination of the two will boost the immune system to attack the tumor more strongly and hopefully destroy it.
3 Science Subpage: Reprogramming macrophages with CSF-1R inhibitors enhances the effectiveness of radiotherapy for glioblastoma Doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaw7843 In a new study, from Researchers at research institutions such as the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Switzerland and the University of Lausanne analyzed how radiotherapy alters the behavior of macrophages (an immune cell) found in glioblastoma (GBM) and shows how these cells can be reprogrammed with existing drugs to inhibit the continued recurrence of this invasive brain cancer.
study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
this study details how radiotherapy dynamically alters gene expression procedures in two subtypes of tumor-related macrophages (TAM) and describes how these changes are driving TAM into a state that helps treat immune emergence and tumor growth.
Joyce and her colleagues also confirmed that combining radiotherapy with a drug that targets macrophages every day--- a CSF-1R inhibitor , can reverse this shift and significantly prolong the survival of the GBM mouse model.
Joyce said, "These preclinical data tell us that for GBM patients receiving radiotherapy, adding CSF-1R inhibitors to the treatment package may have the effect of prolonging survival."
" Cell Stem Cell: CAR-T cells targeting CD133 are expected to treat glioblastoma doi:10.1016/j.stem.2020.20 04.008 In a new study, researchers from McMaster University in Canada and the University of Toronto have developed a promising immunotherapy that could be used to treat a deadly form of adult brain cancer, glioblastoma.
findings were published online online in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
This immunotherapy, called chimic antigen-binding T-cell (CAR-T), involves genetically adapting T-cells from the patient's blood in the laboratory, making them directly target a specific protein called CD133 on the surface of the glioblastoma cell and destroying the cancer cells.
When used in mice carrying human glioblastoma, CAR-T cell therapy targeting CD133 was considered successful because it reduced the tumor burden in these mice and improved their survival.
data from the study prompted the establishment of a brain cancer immunotherapy company called Empirica Therapeutics in Hamilton, Canada.
the company aims to conduct clinical trials of CD133-specific CAR-T cell therapies and other therapies in patients with relapsed glioblastoma by 2022.
5 Science Sub-Journal: Major Progress! Reuse chlorotoxins in scorpion venom to target and kill glioblastoma doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaw2672 In a new study, researchers from the City of Hope in the United States developed and tested the first use of chlorotoxin, CLTX) directs T-cells to target the inlay antigen-subject (CAR)T-cell (CAR-T) therapy of brain tumor cells, where chlorotoxin is an ingredient in scorpion venom.
also opened the first human clinical trial using this CAR-T cell therapy.
study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
CAR typically integrates single-antiseed sequences into its targeted domain, enabling CAR-T cells to identify antigens and kill tumor cells.
this comparison, CLTX-CAR uses a peptide sequence of 36 amino acids, first isolated from the venom of the deadly scorpion, which is now modified to act as a CAR identification domain.
glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common type of brain tumor and one of the deadliest human cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
when the tumor spreads throughout the brain, it is particularly difficult to treat.
efforts to develop immunotherapy, including CAR-T cells, for GBM must also overcome the high heterogeneity within these tumors.
Cell Stem Cell: New study reveals the origin of human glioblastoma doi:10.1016/j.stem.2019.11.015 Glioblastoma is the most invasive form of brain cancer, which grows and spreads rapidly in the brain and is almost impossible to eradicate, often leading to death within a year or two of diagnosis.
scientists have been looking for more effective targeted therapies, but so far they have not been successful, in part because such tumors are difficult to study in a laboratory environment.
. Aparna Bhaduri, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, said, "Glioblastoma is invasive and tenacious in patients, but has been difficult to survive in the lab."
In previous studies of glioblastoma in mice, only 5 to 10 percent of human tumors survived transplanted into them, leading us to speculate that such tumors may differ in many important ways from those that do not survive.
" Now, for the first time in a new study, researchers from institutions such as the University of California, San Francisco, have successfully caused multiple glioblastomas to survive using human brain organs ---blasts of brain tissue grown from human stem cells--- in a laboratory, the study was published in the journal Cell Cell Stem.
the researchers first created a map of glioblastomas obtained during surgical treatment in human patients, classifying dozens of different cell types and their unique patterns of gene expression.
then used brain-like organs grown from human stem cells to simulate the behavior of these genetically identified types of cancer cells in human brain tissue.
: Human glioblastoma organs reproduce tumor characteristics and can be used to evaluate the efficacy of drugs and CAR-T cells doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.11.036 glioblastoma is the most invasive and common form of brain cancer.
laboratory brain organs grown from the patient's own glioblastoma may provide an answer to how best to treat it.
a new study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States found that glioblastoma-like organs may serve as effective models to quickly test personalized treatment strategies.
study was published in the Cell journal.
polymorphic glioblastoma (GBM) remains the most difficult to study and treat of all brain cancers, mainly due to the heterogeneity of the tumor.
has been proven that treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, as well as newer personalized cell therapies, can slow tumor growth and keep patients disease-free for a period of time, but cures are still difficult.
Hongjun Song, a researcher, said,
Urthough we have made great strides in glioblastoma research, preclinical and clinical challenges remain, making it impossible for us to approach more effective treatments."
one of the obstacles is the ability to reproduce the tumor, which not only better understands its complex characteristics, but also determines which treatments can fight it more quickly after surgery.
" Nat Biotechnol: Gene-editing immunocellular attacks on glioblastoma doi:10.1038/s41587-019-0246-4 Sidi Chen lab, an assistant professor of genetics at Yale University's Institute of Systems Biology and Yale Cancer Center, has developed an advanced gene editing and screening technique to find new targets for cancer immunotherapy.
study, published recently in the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers say that in mouse glioblastoma models, T cells containing these genetic targets can slow tumor growth.
glioblastoma is a particularly difficult brain cancer to treat.
that the brain's immune system is very limited and therefore not a particularly promising immunotherapy organ.
's lab has developed a complex viral vector that contains transsego or jump genes that help T-cells screen their genes.
screening of T-cells revealed a target, PDIA3, which inhibits the growth of glioblastoma in mice when inhibited in T-cells.
researchers have also shown that knocking out PDIA3 in certain types of T cells can enhance their anti-cancer properties in human glioblastoma cells.
9 (Xinhua) -- Drug-induced IL-12 gene therapy promises to treat patients with relapsed glioblastoma doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaw5680 In a new clinical study, an induced tumor-based gene therapy has been tested for the first time in patients with glioblastoma.
This two-part approach involves injecting a gene that encodes an immune activated substance into a brain tumor site and taking a drug that activates the gene, leading to the production of the immune activatant ---leocyte mesotonin 12 (IL-12)--- and the infiltration of immune cells into tumor tissue.
these results also suggest that this treatment may prolong the survival of patients.
study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
researchers say all the recent evidence suggests that if you can really get the immune system to attack tumors, then you have the potential to increase the potential to cure tumors, and this study is moving in that direction.
glioblastoma is an invasive and deadly form of brain cancer with an average survival of only 6 to 9 months after diagnosis.
Chiocca, a neurosurgeon at Harvard Medical School who led the study, said that even with standard treatment (surgical removal of all or part of the tumor and then six weeks of radiotherapy), "an average of 7 months. . . The tumor returned."
many factors make glioblastoma a formidable disease.
, the blood-brain barrier prevents many chemotherapy drugs from reaching the tumor.
the cancer itself is highly heterogeneic, so even if the drug works for some cells, others may grow and replace it