Thanks to a grant from the National Institute of Health, Bahram Parvin, professor of biomedical engineering, is researching an initiative that can tailor treatment options for brain tumors based on the patient’s unique molecular and pathology signatures. The overall goal is to identify biomarkers of the adult brain tumors based on pathogenomic signatures that are predictive of a particular therapy.
Focusing on malignant low grade gliomas, with better prognosis, and glioblastoma multiforme, with poor prognosis, the study will use a large cohort of patient’s samples for pathogenomic form discovery with the results confirmed on an alternative cohort and the laboratory models based on neutrospheres.
Glioblastoma multiforme occurs in two to three per 100,000 adults per year and accounts for 52 percent of all primary brain tumors, and occurs in adults between the ages of 45 to 70, notes the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
Parvin’s lab is also investigating new therapies for breast cancer, where his lab is split between researching both types of cancer. Research scientist Qingsu Cheng, and three graduate students, Garrett Winkelmaier, Kosar Jabbari, and Cody Andersen, all collaborate to develop an integrated computational and experimental model for rapid biomarker discovery and validation.
