Patients with such kind of a glioblastoma are operated and the tumor as much as possible removed. Unfortunately, some of the cancer cells remain in the brain. In order to prevent that the tumor then grows again in the brain there are only s single drug avialable, named temozolomide. To investigate other active ingredients mice are used in particularly painful experiments, in which the tumor is induced in the animals artificially.  The half of the animals die of the size of the tumor. The experiments are carried out for years, however have never helped with a scientific breakthrough.

The researcher team led by Ingo Bechmann from the Institute of Anatomy at the Leipzig University now want to investigate new substances using slice cultures of approximately 300 microns thickness which consists of human glioblastoma cells.

After addition of test substances medium from the slice cultures can be taken out in order to search for biomarkers that reflect or announce apoptosis or necrosis of the cells.

The researchers have published information about their technology in the journal Neuro-Oncology.

Source (in German): http://www.dradio.de/