FIRST STEPS TOWARDS UK GBM CLINICAL TRIAL

GBM and MM cells

Credit: Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at Imperial College, London

In partnership with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, the Brain Tumour Research Novel Therapeutics Accelerator (BTR-NTA) is designed to close the gap between the number of promising research findings and those that progress into successful clinical trials. It provides the infrastructure for researchers to receive bespoke feedback on the development path for the therapeutics they are studying, as well as identifying pitfalls in clinical trial design before they approach potential funders.

Since it was announced in June 2022, the initiative has welcomed Dr Charlotte Aitken as a full-time programme manager and recruited 12 brain tumour, pre-clinical and pharmaceutical experts, as well as a patient representative. It is also building an extended bank of experts who can provide tailored expertise for applications.

Encouragingly, the programme has already received several expressions of interest with applications invited from June 2023. Selected applicants will have their therapeutic reviewed by a panel of experts at the first in-person review meeting in November.

Applicants can register their expression of interest online: www.tessajowellbraincancermission.org/ strategic-programmes/btr-nta

In partnership with our Member Charity brainstrust, Brain Tumour Research also funds the Patient Research Involvement Movement (PRIME), which was set up to bring people with direct experience of living with a brain tumour into contact with the clinical research community where they can help shape studies and secure funding for research and clinical trials.

The programme continues to work towards a new gold standard for patient and public involvement (PPIE) in the clinical brain tumour research landscape. PPIE is essential if clinical trials are to be funded; it offers insight into how best to design a study and improve the quality of the study overall, so that it is meaningful, relevant and more likely to recruit.

Patient advocates have been involved in early-phase clinical trials including one to determine a model for brain tumour patients’ disease; studies on social cognition assessments for brain tumour patients and establishing core outcome sets for brain cancer trials; and a surgery trial for people with brain tumour related epilepsy.

To find out more about PRIME, email adam@braintrust.org.uk

Read more about BTR-NTA and PRIME on our website: www.braintumourresearch.org/ research/enabling-research

Work is underway to take forward exciting findings which could improve outcomes for patients diagnosed with glioblastoma (GBM).

The team at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at Imperial College, London, is developing a robust protocol for a ‘windowofopportunity’ clinical trial. This type of trial allows a drug of interest to be given to a patient over a short period of time prior to the instigation of standard of care treatment.

The study would see patients treated with a drug called ADI-PEG20 in combination with radiotherapy prior to surgery, before continuing down the route of standard care.

It aims to build on exciting findings from our Imperial Research Centre where ADI-PEG20 was shown to improve the efficacy of radiotherapy. The drug depletes arginine –an amino acid which is critical for the growth and survival of human cancers. Results from preclinical models suggest that by reducing the supply of arginine, GBM tumours are much more susceptible to radiotherapy.

In the project named WISTERIAN, funded by Brain Tumour Research, Dr Matt Williams and the team are writing the trial protocol and gathering the additional data required to secure external funding for the clinical trial.