Ride Cincinnati grant funds research on immune activating wafer for glioblastoma treatment

MSN UK highlighted University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers studying the use of a delayed release preparation or wafer of an immunostimulatory molecule known as IL-15 to stimulate the central nervous system immune system after surgery to remove glioblastoma brain tumors.

Jonathan Forbes, MD, the project’s principal investigator, explained glioblastomas are the most common type of primary cancer of the brain. Only 5% to 7% of patients with a glioblastoma survive five years after diagnosis.

“After surgery to remove the tumor, we have unencumbered access to a resection cavity that we know microscopically is invaded by tumor cells,” said Forbes, associate professor and residency program director in the Department of Neurosurgery in UC’s College of Medicine and a UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute neurosurgeon. “Why not use this access to enhance the central nervous system’s ability to clear residual tumor cells?”

The grant funding will allow the team to test how the immunostimulatory preparation actually stimulates the immune system using glioblastoma-on-a-chip technology developed in partnership with Ricardo Barrile, PhD.

“An organ-on-a-chip is a miniaturized model of a living organ engineered to incorporate the minimal biological elements needed to recreate specific disease conditions,” said Barrile, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Instead of testing drugs on flat plastic dishes or relying solely on animal models — which often fail to predict human results due to genetic disparities — we use 3D bioprinting and microfluidics to build a living model of a human organ.”

Read the MSN UK article.

Read more about the research.

Featured photo at top of bioprinting in Barrile's lab. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand.