[농업경제신문 박재현 기자] Severance announced on the 11th that a method had been developed to increase the drug delivery rate to increase the effectiveness of treatment for brain tumors.

Yonsei University College of Medicine Department of Medical Engineering Professor Hak-Jun Seong  Young-Min Shin  Seung-Eun Yoo, and researcher Se-Wum Baek (Ph.D.) research team devised a plan to enhance the effect of brain tumor drugs and confirmed the actual efficacy in brain tumor-causing spheroids.

Glioblastoma, which accounts for 15% of all brain tumors, is a disease in which tumors occur in glial cells in the brain. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies malignant tumors in the 4th grade.

Depending on the location of the brain where the glioblastoma has occurred, various symptoms such as convulsions, speech and visual field disturbances occur. The faster the tumor grows, the faster the symptoms worsen. If the intracranial pressure rises rapidly as symptoms worsen, headache, vomiting, and loss of consciousness appear.

Treatment includes surgery, radiation, and drugs. Glioblastoma rapidly develops drug resistance. As the tumor undergoes cell division, there is a lack of oxygen inside, and the hypoxic state leads to the expression of genes that make them resistant to anticancer drugs.

To solve this problem, the research team devised a way to supply oxygen to glioblastoma and made a spheroid that reproduced glioblastoma as it is to test the actual efficacy.

First, we developed a method to increase oxygen supply by using oxygen-releasing microparticles in that the hypoxic state caused by tumor cell division reduces drug response.

As a result of the experiment, the spheroids were treated with oxygen-releasing microparticles, and the invasiveness, which indicates the extent of tumor spread, was 58% lower than that of the untreated spheroids. Drug reactivity increased by 32%.

A spheroid is an aggregate of dozens or more of single cells forming a three-dimensional sphere.

In addition, glioblastoma spheroids with sufficient oxygen and glioblastoma spheroids without oxygen were fabricated with a 3D chip and implanted into mice, respectively. In the oxygen-sufficient model, tumor growth rate was 57% slower and drug reactivity was 19% higher than in the control group.

Professor Seong Hak-jun said, “This spheroid can be used in animal experiments, so it can be used in various ways to conquer glioblastoma, such as testing drug response. I will take the lead,” he said.

The results of this research were published in the latest issue of ‘Advanced Healthcare Materials (IF 9.933)’, a world-renowned academic journal in the field of materials science.

By Park Jae-hyun, staff reporter pjswin22@thekpm.com