Forcing brain cancer cells to be more vulnerable to treatment

On average, over 12,000 people are diagnosed with brain cancer each year in the UK.

Brain cancer is incurable. The typical life expectancy after tumour discovery is only around 12-15 months, even with the best treatment available. New treatments are desperately needed.

Christopher Yusuf Akhunbay-Fudge has received a grant of £200,000 from Leeds Hospitals Charity and will spend the next two years investigating the cell cycle, how they multiply and mutate and ultimately what makes them resistant chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Currently, it is almost impossible to completely remove all cancerous cells from the brain through surgery without having lasting affects on a patient.

This means that treatment is often a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, cancer cells are clever and find ways to resist treatment and grow back new tumours.

Using new technologies to insert coloured cancer cells into a normal ball of brain tissue, Christopher will study the cell cycle and hopes to identify at what point a cell changes and why. This information has the potential to lead to breakthroughs in more targeted and precise treatment.

Christopher is one year into his PhD and already the study is revealing some fascinating insights: the pace of cell change in a 24 hour period alone has shown to be significant.  Christopher is an aspiring future leader in brain cancer research and supported by an excellent team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals & The University of Leeds.