The Brain Tumor Therapeutics Program

Brain tumors are the #2 cause of cancer-related deaths in children and young adults.

In-house fabricated microarrays for the identification of genes with therapeutic potential.

An example of a successful gene therapy experiment.

Adenoviral-based gene therapies for clinical trials

Rationale for a glyco-based therapeutic program for human brain tumors:

• Cell-surface glycoconjugates regulate cellular migration in normal cells and control metastases and invasivity in tumor cells

• The glycoconjugate gene family is very large: there are many candidates for therapeutic development

• Thus, we have created a microarray representing all 362 of the known human glycosyltransferase and glyosylhydrolase genes and use it to screen panels of primary human brain tumors and glioma cell lines and normal human brain tissue