Formation of brain tumours mimics the brain wound healing process
Glioblastoma is the most common and most aggressive malignant primary brain tumour. The treatment options remain limited and insufficient. Importantly, it is unclear how these tumours initiate and progress, which makes it difficult to develop effective therapeutic strategies to counteract tumour growth. New research by Akram Hamed provides a detailed map of the entire process of glioblastoma formation and reveals that tumour initiation mimics a brain injury response. Hamed performed this study in Peter Dirks’ laboratory at the University of Toronto. The results of this study raise the prospect of finding specific biomarkers to identify these tumours early on and of developing potential intervention strategies that target injury-response programmes.
Read the full story here: https://can-acn.org/brain-star-award-winner-akram-hamed/
View the scientific publication:
Akram A. Hamed, Kui Hua, Quang M. Trinh, Benjamin D. Simons, John C. Marioni, Lincoln D. Stein, Peter B. Dirks. Gliomagenesis mimics an injury response orchestrated by neural crest-like cells. Nature 638, 499-509, doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08356-2 (2025).
