BBB Opening Using Electroporation to Treat Brain Cancer

This study led by doctorate students Shirley Sharabi (Yael Mardor's group) and Yael Bresler, explores the usage of electroporation for BBB disruption and brain tumor treatment.

Despite aggressive therapy, existing treatments offer poor prognosis for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients, in part due to poor penetration of therapeutic agents across the blood- brain barrier (BBB), significant tumor infiltration into surrounding tissues and highly resistance to therapeutic apoptotic stimuli. Our collaborators, Dr. Mardor's group, recently demonstrated that electroporation has the ability to create focal necrosis in either brain tissue or brain tumors in a control maner while breaching much larger volume of the BBB which could enable therapeutic agents penetration to tumor cells.

The current research is designed to study the mechanism and kinetics of BBB disruption and tumor ablation by electroporation.

In addition, we intend to study the efficacy of combined treatment of irreversible and reversible electroporation with systemic chemotherapy using optimal parameters chosen by the in vivo and in vitro experiments. This kind of treatment is minimally invasive and we hope that better understanding of the process will enable creation of treatment protocols for brain tumors.

This project is funded by the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF).