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The three-year £225,000 grant from The Brain Tumour Charity will fund research into whether it's possible to use T-cells to track and detect gliomas.

Dr Bo Sun © Bo Sun

The Brain Tumour Charity’s Future Leaders Postdoctoral Fellowship is designed to enable researchers to establish themselves as leading experts and support research in the neuro-oncology field. Bo’s project focuses on using T-cell receptors, a type of immune cell, to detect and predict the regrowth of diffuse gliomas, a form of brain tumour originating from glial cells, following treatment.

In the UK, approximately 12,700 new cases of brain tumours are diagnosed each year, making it the 9th most common cancer. Diffuse gliomas are the most prevalent brain tumours in adults, with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) being the most common and aggressive subtype. GBM is associated with a poor prognosis, with a median survival time of just over one year.

A significant percentage of glioma patients experience tumour regrowth after initial treatment, and current detection methods are imperfect, often failing to catch tumours at the earliest stages of recurrence.

By using patient blood samples to look at T-cell receptors, Bo aims to develop a less invasive approach to identifying and monitoring these tumours, and aid in the identification of regrowth as early as possible. The project will make use of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge sequencing technology.

Bo, an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Neurology, said:

 

The knowledge gained from this type of research is going to be vital in developing a better understanding of how immune cells interact with brain cancers, which could help guide the use of immune therapies more effectively."