Foundation Funded Research Update: Enhancing Delivery of Drugs to Glioblastoma

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With the goal of more efficiently delivering molecules to brain tumors, Tyrone Porter, PhD, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, and Nathan McDannold, PhD, Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical and Brigham & Women’s Hospital, collaborated on a project to package and hide small interfering RNA (siRNA) within nanoparticles. They then used focused ultrasound to deliver an adequate amount of them to turn off genes that allow glioblastoma brain tumors to grow.

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Was the team able to successfully deliver an effective amount of siRNA to the brain tumors using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier, increase diffusion into the targeted cells, and silence the tumor gene in a rat or mouse model? Two of the three goals were successful, and the group has developed ideas for meeting the third. See “Ultrasound-mediated delivery of siRNA for enhancing temozolomide efficacy against glioblastoma.”