A Stem Cell Special Delivery

Even after surgery and chemotherapy, patients with an aggressive type of brain tumor called a glioblastoma survive on average for 15 months. A research team led by Marciej S. Lesniak of the University of Chicago’s Brain Tumor Center is trying to improve that statistic by using neural stem cells (NSCs) as a type of Trojan horse for chemotherapy. NSCs have built-in homing mechanisms that allow them to “sniff out” tumors and migrate toward the malignant masses, said postdoctoral researcher Yu Cheng. The team filled porous silica nanoparticles with the cancer drug doxorubicin and tricked the NSCs into taking up the tiny materials inside their cell walls. Then the researchers injected the cells into the brains of mice just a few millimeters from grafted glioblastomas. Over the course of a few days, the NSCs migrated to the tumors, where doxorubicin’s toxicity caused them to burst and release the chemotherapy agent onto the malignant growths. One injection of cells extended the lives of the mice by a week (Small 2013, DOI: 10.1002/smll.201301111). Because FDA has already approved the line of NSCs used by the team for human clinical trials, the researchers hope their treatment strategy will quickly transition to use in cancer patients.