Researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute (SACRI) have shown that a drug AZD8055, when combined with Temozolomide (TMZ) – already taken by most glioblastoma patients – extended survival by 30 per cent. AZD8055 inhibits the mTOR signalling pathway and causes the cancer cells to die.
Samuel Weiss, PhD, Professor and Director of the HBI, and Research Assistant Professor Artee Luchman, PhD, and colleagues, published their work in Clinical Cancer Research, and a human phase I/II clinical trial will start as early as Spring 2015.
The research was conducted with animals.
"Shutting off vital tumour growth processes can lead to the death of human brain tumour-initiating cells. Our research has identified a key process in brain tumour growth that we were able to target with AZD8055," says Luchman from the university’s Cumming School of Medicine and a member of the HBI.