Overcoming treatment resistance in glioblastoma through targeted Wnt inhibition

A team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (PA, USA) has overcome chemotherapy resistance in glioblastoma cultures through the targeted inhibition of the Wnt pathway in neighboring stromal cells. The study builds on research showing how glioblastoma triggers stromal cells to act more like stem cells to support tumor growth. Most estimates indicate that around 11,000 new cases of glioblastoma develop in the USA each year. It is a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer that has a 5-year survival rate of just 5–10% and has had very few developments in treatment over the past...