Every year, about 7 to 19 in 100,000 people are diagnosed with brain cancer, which affects the brain and the central nervous system.
The main weapon against brain cancer is knowing its onset and growth mechanisms. Research has made great strides over the years in the diagnosis and treatment of these tumors, but a lot remains to do.
Among the many foundations that are committed to cancer research is Fondazione Celeghin, which has been funding research projects on brain cancer in collaboration with Italian hospitals and universities since 2012. The foundation aims to improve cancer diagnostics and identify new treatment options to give hope to patients and their families.
Every year the Foundation awards funding through a competitive process to encourage research on brain tumors.
This year, funding will go to a project of the Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology - Cibio of the University of Trento, “Mitochondrial translation inhibitors for brain cancer: from bench to bedside”, coordinated by professor Alessandro Quattrone, director of Cibio. The project, that will receive 150,000 euro for two years, aims to test new drugs and is based on scientific and technological knowledge developed through precision medicine to speed up the transition from bench to bedside. The funds awarded to UniTrento research will be used to pay the salaries of researchers involved in the project and to purchase equipment.
Annalisa Celeghin, president of the foundation, was welcomed today by Rector Paolo Collini at Palazzo Sardagna, home to the Rectorate, for personal introductions and to learn the details of the project by Denise Sighel, postdoc researcher at Cibio. The foundation is named after Giovanni Celeghin, who had been diagnosed with multifocal glioblastoma, a very aggressive brain tumor, and passed away in January 2011 when he had just turned 68. An entrepreneur from Padova, a cycling enthusiast, he supported research through numerous donations. Today the foundation participates in the fight against brain cancer by contributing to cutting edge research projects and organizing awareness raising campaigns through a network of volunteers. "We are honored to collaborate with the University of Trento and specifically with the Cibio Department, which is an excellent research institution" commented president Annalisa Celeghin. "We have a lot of expectations on this project, which has been carefully selected by our scientific committee, chaired by professor Modesto Carli, because of its unconventional approach and its solid scientific basis".
The funded project: improve an existing antibiotic drug to use it in the fight against brain tumors.
Multifocal glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive malignant brain tumor in adults. At the moment there is only one approved drug that can increase the life expectancy of patients. The cancer however inevitably recurs, the prognosis remains poor, and patients on average survive 14 months. What are the reasons for tumor recurrence? Denise Sighel provided an explanation: "One of the reasons for recurrence is that glioblastoma stem cells are resistant to treatment. These cells need oxidative phosphorylation for their energy supply, a fundamental biochemical process. Patients where this process is more advanced have a worse life expectancy. In a previous study we postulated a new treatment strategy against this tumor that is based on the inhibition of this process. And at the heart of this approach is an approved antibiotic drug available on the marked that may block the proliferation of glioblastoma stem cells. The data we collected so far are promising but there is still a long way to go to determine whether this drug can actually be effective".
"With this project – added director Alessandro Quattrone – we aim to examine and test in the lab in vitro and in vivo about thirty molecules that are similar to the drug at issue, and which may be more precise and thus more effective. In the future, we may be able to tell how the different molecular subtypes of multifocal glioblastoma respond to treatment, see which ones are more sensitive to the treatment, and select patients with the best chances to respond to the drug treatment, taking a precision medicine approach. Treating people with brain tumors is a race against time. And that is why our goal is to select the best candidate molecule for further preclinical and clinical studies for the treatment of multifocal glioblastoma".
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For more information: www.fondazioneceleghin.it