New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham
identifies a key regulator of brain-tumor growth that holds
potential for targeted therapy and can be an independent
predictor in patient outcomes. In a study that was published
online in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American
Association for Cancer Research, on May 22, 2012, Christopher D.
Willey, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Department
of Radiation Oncology and associate scientist in the
experimental therapeutics program at the UAB Comprehensive
Cancer Center, has examined a protein called Myristoylated
Alanine Rich C-Kinase Substrate, or MARCKS, in the context of
glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and deadly cancer
originating in the brain. Until now, very little was known about
what MARCKS does in brain tumors. Based on studies in
glioblastoma cell cultures and in human glioblastoma tumors
implanted in mice, the research team led by John Jarboe,
graduate student in the UAB Medical Scientist Training Program,
found