Glioblastoma multiforme, the most common of malignant brain tumors in adults, is one of the deadliest of all forms of cancer. Striking some 18,000 new victims in the United States every year, the disease is always fatal, usually within six months of onset. Surgery and conventional radiation therapies may prolong life for up to a year, but cannot stop the tumors from continuing to spread throughout the brain. Some anticancer drugs show promise against brain tumors, but getting drugs past the blood-brain barrier is a major challenge. Now a collaboration of researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) have demonstrated the potential for nanosized synthetic particles of low density lipoprotein, or LDL, to deliver anticancer drugs to glioblastoma multiforme tumors safely and effectively. “We have identified LDL receptors on glioblastoma multiforme tumor cells that can serve as specific molecular targets,” says lipoprotein research specialist Trudy Forte. LDL receptors are sparse in normal brain tissue but elevated in tumor cells; the hope is that the synthetic nano-LDLs (nLDLs) can deliver drugs to glioblastoma multiforme tumors while sparing healthy cells. Forte, who has joint appointments in Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division and CHORI, led the study with colleagues Mina Nikanjam, Eleanor Blakely, Kathleen Bjornstad, Xiao Shu, and Thomas Budinger. Glioblastoma multiforme is a cancer of the glial cells, which support the neurons and make up about 90 percent of the cells in the brain. As the term multiforme suggests, these cells can take on a wide variety of shapes, making detection difficult until tumors become large. Tendrils of malignant cells can extend into healthy brain tissue. If removal or destruction of the main tumor mass leaves tendrils intact, like the mythical Hydra the tendrils will sprout new tumors. One solution would be to follow surgery with anticancer drugs. However, drugs infused in the blood encounter the blood-brain barrier, a tightly knit membrane of cells at the boundary between the central nervous system…

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