Since 2012 the funds raised by all those who knew Colin or the extended family of friends who watched his diagnosis with GBM Brain cancer until his battle was finally lost in the summer of 2013 have supported raising over £45k (10%) of the funds quoted below.

Headcase Cancer Trust now raised in the region of £450,000 since we started in Oct 2010. They have just committed a further £67,000 to Portsmouth University taking their total investment there to £250,000! They have also just committed £95,000 to Nottingham Trent University

Portsmouth

More wizards doing wizardly things…..

OK the big news is that they are also funding a 3rd Research Project at Portsmouth University! That means the total investment at Portsmouth will be a few quid short of £1/4 million!! (BIG BIG thanks to all of YOU that have made this happen!)

This time we’re providing funding of approx £68,000 for a 2 year project entitled ‘Engineering Novel Endocrine Therapies for GBM’ (quite).

In Normal Person English (as opposed to Wizard speak) that translates to stretching nano-fibres to a width of around 1/1000th of a mm so they can pass through the Blood Brain Barrier (try saying that quickly!). This is really important as the BBB stops stuff getting to your brain, like drugs (weirdly it lets LSD through though… go figure).

What the Wizards will then be doing is attaching drugs to the nano-fibres so that they are pulled through the BBB quicker (important for some drugs as their potency runs out in minutes), and in greater quantity (important for other drugs as normal amounts, to have an effect, are poisonous to the rest of the body).

If successful, this will then allow said drugs to target the GBM specifically and inhibit its growth and stop it invading healthy brain tissue.

Sorcery indeed!

….. and before anyone says it attaching the drugs to LSD so it takes them through the BBB isn’t a sensible option!

Nottingham Trent

Wizards doing wizardly things……..

A chance internet search and phone call has led to Headcase providing funding of around £100,000 to the John van Geest Cancer Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University for a 3 year Research Project!

This is a potentially ground breaking project that if successful could lead to clinical trials within 5 years.

So what are they up to?……

Well it really is wizardly stuff…. they have already discovered an antigen protein present in GBM called HAGE (it’s also present in aggressive breast cancer). HAGE it would seem is a target for a potential vaccine against GBM i.e. the vaccine would stimulate the immune system to ‘kill’ the GBM.

There’s a lot of interest in ‘Immunotherapies’ and personalised medicines for cancer at the moment particularly as they are less toxic than existing therapies.  We’ll keep you updated on their progress.

Clomipramine Trial 

We’re awaiting results from test taking place at the University of Bergen, which if successful, will mean that we can start a 2 year trial of around 100 patients using Clomipramine. Current ad hoc evidence shows that Clomipramine extends survival time for GBM to years rather than months with a good quality of life. If the Norwegian tests are successful we hope to start the trial in June/July.