Scientists find brain tumor protein link

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 19 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists have identified a link between two brain tumor proteins -- a discovery that might lead to new treatments for brain cancer.

Glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM, is the most aggressive brain tumor that occurs in adults, striking about 15,000 people in the United States each year and killing about 99 percent of those patients.

GBM is currently treated with a combination of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy but the treatments have proven ineffective, with most brain cancer victims dying within a year.

Now Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists have uncovered a connection between two proteins found in such tumor cells that might prove effective as targets for killing tumor cells.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor Forest White, say their study might produce treatments for GMB that has proven resistant to all drugs so far tried against it.

The research -- performed in collaboration with scientists at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research in San Diego led by Webster Cavenee and Frank Furnari -- is reported in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.