National Brain Tumor Society announces launch of the Defeat GBM Research Collaborative
Initiative aims to double five-year survival rate of patients with glioblastoma multiforme in just five years through what the National Brain Tumor Society calls an ‘innovative scientific construct and funding model’
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To achieve this goal, those running the Defeat GBMResearch Collaborative plan to connect leading brain tumor researchers from topcancer institutions across the globe, in a "tightly focused and goal-driven effort,"the National Brain Tumor Society says. "Through research collaboration,synergistic projects will be combined and driven by investigator teams withproven track records of results to create significant improvement in patient survival."
The primary goal will be to share data among allprojects and investigator teams within Defeat GBM to better inform the overalleffort and to advance potential therapies down the drug discovery pipeline.
"Defeat GBM draws upon successful science andproven funding models from other disease populations that have yet to beutilized in brain tumor research," said N. Paul TonThat, executive director ofthe National Brain Tumor Society. "The brain tumor community can no longerspend years and millions of dollars to achieve only incremental progress inthis deadly disease."
Participating researchers and investigator teamsfor key projects within Defeat GBM will initially stem from such institutions asthe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Ludwig Institute forCancer Research. The Initiative will also actively collaborate with theNational Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) on a parallel bioinformatics andGBM genomics project, which capitalizes on NFCR's longstanding relationshipwith the Tissue Bank Consortium in Tianjin, China.
The National Brain Tumor Society touts various "additionaland unique aspects" of the program, which include simultaneous research effortsin basic discovery science, translational science, preclinical drug developmentand clinical trial design, all of which is "intended to identify the rightbiological targets and attack them with the right therapies in the right patients."
