Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Despite considerable gains in understanding the genetic abnormalities of brain tumours, little progress has been made in improving survival for patients with Glioblastoma (GBM) which remains a universally lethal cancer. Standard of care treatment for GBM includes chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ), which increases survival by just 3 months on average with many patients deriving no benefit. To combative this high lethality cancer, new treatment strategies are desperately needed. Using the recently developed CRISPR-Cas9 technology we have systematically assessed which genes in the genome are essential for the survival of stem cells derived from brain tumor biopsies. These "essential genes" represent genetic vulnerabilities that could potential represent new drug targets. By examining samples derived from eight different patients we hope to capture the genetic diversity found in the human population. By comparing our results with similar studies in different cancer types, we have identified a number of "Glioblastoma-specific" genetic vulnerabilities, that can be exploited to kill tumor cells using chemical inhibitors. Furthermore, we can also identified genes that make Glioblastoma cells resistant to chemotherapy and identify potential drug targets for combination therapy with temozolmode. In summary, our results provide an extensive "roadmap" of genetic vulnerabilities in a high fatality cancer that can leverage for the future development of new therapeutic strategies