Glioblastoma (GBM) affects nearly 12,000 adults in the U.S. per year and, despite efforts over 3 decades, the median survival is unchanged at 14-18 months and 5-year survival at 6%. Emerging evidence supports two cell populations, migrating and dormant cells, that are difficult to identify and promote tumor recurrence and mortality in GBM. Current methods of drug discovery only focus on rapid cell growth and most drugs developed for GBM do not target dormant and migrating cells that are responsible for recurrence, metastasis, and ultimately patient mortality. There is a lack of methods for identification, retrieval, and analysis of these cancer cells. Without such a platform, there is no way...

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Glioblastoma (GBM) affects nearly 12,000 adults in the U.S. per year and, despite efforts over 3 decades, the median survival is unchanged at 14-18 months and 5-year survival at 6%. Emerging evidence supports two cell populations, migrating and dormant cells, that are difficult to identify and promote tumor recurrence and mortality in GBM. Current methods of drug discovery only focus on rapid cell growth and most drugs developed for GBM do not target dormant and migrating cells that are responsible for recurrence, metastasis, and ultimately patient mortality. There is a lack of methods for identification, retrieval, and analysis of these cancer cells. Without such a platform, there is no way to target these critical cell populations in drug development. SingleCell Biotechnology has developed tests for identifying, isolating, and testing dormant and migrating cells and has completed preliminary work on the core components of the tumor drug discovery platform. The goal of this project will be to optimize and validate a single integrated platform that identifies dormant and migrating cells, which can then be used, for the first time, to screen drug libraries and identify druggable targets for effectively killing dormant and migrating high grade glioma cells. Completion of this project will result in validated tests that are ready to be used for successful drug development against GBM tumors, which has not been possible in 3 decades of research.

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