Application
Combination therapy (inhibition of STAT3 and YB-1) to treat medulloblastoma.
Key Benefits
- Drug combination targets cancer stem cells.
- Increased apoptosis of cancer cells compared to current chemotherapeutic agents.
Market Summary
Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common cancerous brain tumor that affects children and survival rates vary greatly. Treatment for MB consists of invasive brain surgery followed by radiation therapy and nonspecific cytotoxic therapies such as chemotherapy for patients with metastases. MB can be split into four main subgroups. The subgroups can influence clinical treatment by differentiating between low risk and high-risk patients, which require different treatment regimens. However, there is still no method for individually tailoring treatment for patients based on molecular subgroup, nor have new insights into the subgroups led to clinically viable therapies that target the subgroups directly. Therefore, there is a need for more personalized, sub-group specific treatments for medulloblastoma, and ways to evaluate such treatments.
Technical Summary
YB-1 is a protein involved in cancer metastasis and STAT3 is a transcription factor that plays a critical role in cancer initiation, progression, metastasis, chemoresistance, and immune evasion. Since, both YB-1 and STAT3 are both highly expressed in all MB molecular subclasses and MB murine models, Emory researchers develop a therapy for MB combining YB-1 and STAT3. Their in vivo experiments showed that combination treatment significantly inhibited colony formation and induced tumor cell death. Moreover, the combined effect showed greater efficacy than when each drug was given alone.
Developmental Stage
Medulloblastoma combinational therapy YB-1/STAT3 has been efficiently tested in vivo.