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BOSTON - It s a real-life plot worthy of a classic spy novel: Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other Boston-area research centers are turning the tables on glioblastomas, the most devastating and aggressive form of brain cancer, by transforming a type of cell that normally protects tumors and inhibits effective drug therapy into a stone-cold glioblastoma killer.
Glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, is rapidly fatal: Most patients die within two years of diagnosis despite aggressive therapies such as brain surgery, whole-brain radiation and chemotherapy.
Despite hopes that a class of drugs known as immune checkpoint blockers (ICBs) - drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of patients with malignant melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer, and other solid tumors - could also benefit patients with glioblastoma, ICBs have not been effective against the disease in clinical trials to date.