WINNIPEG -- Glioblastoma is one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. A research team at the University of Manitoba is hoping its work will have a hand in improving survival rates.
Tanveer Sharif, who is an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba in the department of pathology, human anatomy and cell science, recently received a new emerging scholar award from the Canadian Cancer Society to fund his lab’s work.
“We sincerely believe that our work will generate some novel findings which will help to formulate novel combination strategies and prolong the cancer patients’ survival,” Sharif told CTV News.
Sharif said the five-year survival rate for glioblastoma patients is low, only four per cent. Many Canadians may remember it as the type of cancer that claimed the life of the Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie.
“The reason why glioblastoma is so difficult to treat is that those cancer cells, they adapt very quickly,” explained Sharif.
Sharif said his lab may be onto how these cells change between the treatment of the primary, or first tumor, and a relapse.
“In our lab, we aim to understand what are the metabolic and molecular progressions which happen during glioblastoma progression,” he said.
“We believe by understanding those metabolic adaptations that happen during the course of glioblastoma progression, we can target those adaptations, and we believe by targeting those adaptations, we can re-sensitize those resistant tumors, the relapsed tumors, to chemotherapy.”
Sharif believes in a few years, the lab may be able to move into an early clinical trial phase where new kinds of treatment can be offered to patients.
The funding also comes at an ideal time. Sharif said over the course of the pandemic, only 25 per cent of staff could be in the lab working. Now that’s increased to 40 per cent. He expects that to be even higher in the coming months.
The emerging scholar grant is worth up to $600,000 over the next five years.
