Authors: Alexander Guareschi,Vincent S. Gallicchio
Glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM, is one of the most invasive and destructive forms of brain cancer. One characteristic that makes GBM so destructive is its resistance to radiotherapy and other forms of therapeutic cancer treatment. Due to increased resistance, most modern therapeutic treatment protocols are not effective with median survival post-treatment of only from 9 to 14 months. Additionally, there are no known pharmaceutical agents that are effective in eliminating or limiting cancer stem cells. At this point, the most effective method of treatment is to target intracellular signaling pathways of cancer stem cells that have not undergone neoplastic transformation and use these pathways to arrest adhesion and proliferation of cancer stem cells. It is important to target these cells before they undergo neoplastic transformation because after that point they are tumorigenic. Many recent approaches of creating therapeutic drugs for treating these GBM cancer stem cells are based on modern cellular and post-genomic technology. At this point the most effective approach for therapeutic drug development is believed to be a combination of targeted therapeutic treatment procedures along with effective regulation of many of the cellular processes of cancer stem cells using their signaling pathways.
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