Potential new treatment for drug resistant brain tumors

Aug 12 2009

Dr. Karen Newell, Ph. D., the lead researcher for bio technology company Viral Genetics (Pink Sheets: VRAL), will address the 4th Annual Aspen Symposium on Brain Tumor Immuno- and Stem Cell Therapy. Her presentation will highlight the potential for combining chemotherapy with compounds that interfere with the ability of brain tumor cells to generate the energy needed to repair chemotherapy induced DNA damage.

This repair mechanism is the major source of drug resistance in patients receiving Temozolomide, a widely used chemotherapy for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM. This combinatorial approach of chemotherapy and metabolic disruption is one of the clinical strategies currently being pursued by Viral Genetics' subsidiary MetaCytoLytics, Inc. The presentation entitled, "Metabolic Disruption as a Mechanism to Potentiate Temozolomide Therapy in Glioblastoma Multiform," is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 12, 2009. At the conference presented by the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Dr. Newell's audience largely will be neurosurgeons and neuro-oncologists.

"Metabolic disruption technology has been around for nearly eighty years," explained Dr. Newell. "Until recently it wasn't understood in a way that enabled researchers to harness it to combat drug resistant cells. That process now has the potential to impact the primary cause of death in cancer patients - drug resistant tumors."

According to MetaCytoLytics CEO, Dr. Richard Trauger, metabolic disruption technology has become a focal point for many cancer researchers because of its ability to limit the ability of the tumor cell to repair itself after damage from chemotherapy. DNA damage repair takes energy, and by going after the fuel sources for the cancer cells, specifically glucose and fatty acids, we have been able to dramatically limit the fuel tumor cells require to repair the damage done by chemotherapy. Dr. Newell's work illustrates the benefit of using metabolic disruption in combination with chemotherapy to not only directly starve the tumor cells but to also prevent them from resisting the effects of the chemotherapy."

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