Recycling an anti-hypertensive agent to fight brain tumors
Treatments available for glioblastoma—malignant brain tumors—have little effect. An international collaboration1 led by the Laboratoire Neurosciences Paris-Seine (CNRS/ INSERM/UPMC)2 tested active ingredients from existing medications and eventually identified one compound of interest, prazosin, on these tumors. Not only did it seem to be effective in this type of cancer, but it also acted on a signaling pathway that is common with other cancers. These promising findings are available online (advance publication) in EMBO Molecular Medicine . Turning old into new is what recycling is all about—and what is being attempted by an international collaboration of research scientists coordinated by Marie-Pierre Junier and Hervé Chneiweiss at the Laboratoire Neurosciences Paris-Seine (Paris). The researchers chose to study the most common malignant tumors that develop from brain cells, glioblastomas, which represent the fourth most frequent cause of cancer deaths among adults and the second in children. This is due to the inefficacy of current treatments.
