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Brain Tumors: 3D Mini Brain Tests Possible Treatments for Pediatric Brain Tumors

 


Like something in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, Sydney scientists are growing a real human mini-brain to test possible treatments for childhood brain tumors.

The Children’s Cancer Research Unit at Children’s Hospital in Westmead transforms stem cells into human brain cells, given the actual brain tumor cells.

These mini-brain accurately mimic what is happening inside the human brain, which suffers from deadly brain tumors.

This will allow scientists to test new treatments that will one day cure their children’s biggest cancer killer.

Mini brains are made by turning human cells into brain cells.
media_cameraMini brains are made by turning human cells into brain cells.
This mini-brain is red, while green is a rapidly growing tumor cell.
media_cameraThis mini-brain is red, while green is a rapidly growing tumor cell.

Brain tumors such as glioma and medulloblastoma are catastrophic diagnoses for children. High-grade gliomas such as diffuse intrinsic bridge glioma (DIPG) are still sentenced to death — 58 years after Neil Armstrong’s daughter Karen died in 1962 at the age of two.

Brain cancer in children kills many children each year in Australia, and it is hoped that these mini-brain will be able to test state-of-the-art treatments, including CAR-T cell therapy. Weaponized human immune cells modified by gene therapy to seek out and destroy cancer cells such as DIPG.

Imaging the mini-brain and tumor using a multiphoton microscope gives a 3D view of the brain.
media_cameraImaging the mini-brain and tumor using a multiphoton microscope gives a 3D view of the brain.

“We’re interested in DIPG, because it’s essentially a diagnosis that you can’t survive,” said Professor Geraldine O’Neill, Head of Childhood Cancer Research Unit.

“We can make these mini-brain in vitro and use it as a platform so that instead of growing brain tumor cells in a hard plastic dish, we can grow them in the mini-brain. Patients Growing in.

“By testing new therapies like CAR-T, we can put cancer cells in a 3D matrix and see if CAR-T cells can get them.”

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This creates an image that looks like a strawberry, but the green cells are normal brain cells and the red areas are cancer. Mapped and blown up by a 3D telescope lens.

Professor Geoff McCowage, a senior pediatric oncologist at the Children’s Hospital in Westmead, said CAR-T cell therapy has already been successfully used in children with leukemia abroad, and new trials for children will begin here by the end of the year. Said.

Scientists can see how the mini-brain responds to treatment through 3D imaging with a high-magnification microscope.
media_cameraScientists can see how the mini-brain responds to treatment through 3D imaging with a high-magnification microscope.

However, adapting treatment to brain tumors means altering the genetic modification of T cells to “fix and destroy” brain tumor cells.

“In the case of brain tumors, there is a chemical on the surface called EphA-2, which is also found in some bone tumors,” he said.

“We created CAR-T cells that attack EphA-2 in tumor tissue rather than normal tissue.”

Like guided missiles, CAR-T cells are encoded to be attracted to EphA-2.

“When the outer antibody finds its target, the message travels inside the cell, telling the T cell to grow crazy and kill whatever is bound,” said Professor McCowage. ..

DIPG’s CAR-T cell trials are underway in Seattle, USA, but it is hoped that the first minibrain-tested treatment will be available in Australia within five years.

“These guided missiles appear to be very effective in killing these cells in the laboratory,” he said.

Such a cure cannot be achieved fast enough for Alisa Brown and her daughter Zara.

“Zara has an optic glioma, a tumor in the brain area of ​​the optic nerve,” Brown said.

Zara Williams, 5 years old, mother Alisa Burns. Zara has been fighting brain tumors since she was 13 months old.
media_cameraZara Williams, 5 years old, mother Alisa Burns. Zara has been fighting brain tumors since she was 13 months old.
Zara Williams was first diagnosed with a brain tumor in 13 months and needed surgery to reduce the tumor.
media_cameraZara Williams was first diagnosed with a brain tumor in 13 months and needed surgery to reduce the tumor.

Zara was diagnosed in 13 months, underwent surgery, and has endured several doses of chemotherapy over a four-year period. Her tumor is low-grade, but progressed earlier this year and is currently trying new chemotherapy to stabilize her.

“She was handling it well, she was scanned and her tumors were reduced. She is ready to start school and is looking forward to next year,” said two mothers in Portland. It was.

“It was a wild vehicle. If she was treated and healed, in 13 months of 2016, I don’t know how to explain what would happen if life at this point were fairly normal. To the future. I think it’s hope. “

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