Sound waves as smugglers: a new route past the brain's defences against its toughest tumour

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive malignant brain tumour in adults, partly because the brain's protective barrier keeps most medicines out. At the University of Virginia, Professor Roger Abounader's team combined three tools to sneak past it: nanoparticles carrying microRNAs — tiny genetic molecules that can interfere with several tumour-growth genes at once — microscopic bubbles, and focused ultrasound guided by MRI to open the way at exactly the right spot. In laboratory and animal studies, the treatment slowed tumour growth and helped the animals live longer. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, are early and experimental, and the team hopes to move toward patient trials. For a disease where attacking one target at a time has repeatedly fallen short, attacking several at once is a genuinely new direction.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation