April 2022

NEUROSCIENCES

PET DOGS ADVANCE GLIOBLASTOMA RESEARCH WITH AMY HEIMBERGER, MD

Featuring: Amy Heimberger, MD
​
​​Man's best friend is helping scientists find new treatments for brain tumors. Amy Heimberger, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon with extensive training and experience in the field of immunology. She is part of a promising new study in canine glioblastoma that could lead to more effective human glioblastoma clinical trials.

​Episode Notes 
Heimberger was part of a team that conducted a Phase I clinical trial at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Investigators injected an immunotherapy drug known as a STING (STimulator of INterferon Genes) agonist directly into the glioblastoma tumors of six dogs. 

Some of the dogs, even with a single dose, responded to the treatment with apparent reductions in their tumor volume, including one complete radiographic response, meaning the tumor completely disappeared. The findings, published in Clinical Cancer Research lead the team to conclude this therapy can trigger a robust, innate anti-tumor immune response and may be highly effective on recalcitrant tumors such as glioblastoma in humans. 

​Topics covered in this show:
  • Heimberger started her training in the field of immunology at a time when the field was just beginning to blossom. She worked with some of the original pioneers of immunology as part of her early training.
  • When immunotherapeutic drugs are developed, they are first tested on mice. Mice are not exposed to the same environmental factors humans are, and the size of the tumors in mice are very small which makes trials on mice less than ideal. When drugs are tested in humans, it takes a lot of time, patience, and money.
  • Dogs develop glioblastomas, but traditional treatment can be prohibitively costly for the owners, and they often have no choice but to put the animal down. Heimberger sees a “win-win” opportunity to test some methods on dogs that might be effective in humans, also, pet dogs are a better subject than artificial systems created in a lab.  
  • Heimberger teamed up with researchers from Texas A&M to run trials on six dogs with glioblastomas. The dogs received the treatment and were monitored with MRIs to see if there was a signal response, and there was.
  • Though there is not a 1-1 correlation between immunological treatment for glioblastoma in dogs v. humans, the testing for a signal response was the main goal of the study, to make sure it would be a “go” for trial in humans.
  • Canines are more widely considered for cancer clinical trials now, as researchers see real merit in conducting this kind of research.
  • Heimberger and her team are currently working on developing an investigational new drug application. Clinical trials for drugs take a very long time as they need to be tested in multiple species, proven to not be dangerous across multiple factors, require a large amount of funding and more. Moreover, rare cancers like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer receive less public support (such as developing a COVID-19 vaccine), so they can be harder to push through.
  • Glioblastoma involves a complex network of T cells, which can be different from some other more common types of cancers. As a result, Heimberger and her team are working on therapeutic strategies that either actually drive the T-cell responses into the cancer or reprogram that tumor microenvironment so that they can work more effectively.
  • Melanoma had dire outcomes just 10-15 years ago, but the outcomes for melanoma patients has changed drastically in that time with the introduction of immunological therapeutic practices. 
  • Heimberger expects that researchers studying glioblastoma will begin to think about things from a more biological basis, and believes that glioblastoma needs to stop being treated like other cancers because it is different.
  • Heimberger emphasized the importance of finding a complete and integrated team of doctors who can work with you if you choose to explore immunological treatment yourself.
  • Heimberger was recently appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Biden. This is an advisory role to the Cancer Center director, Ned Sharpless, and is meant to help strategize around initiatives and priorities at the National Cancer Institute. It presents an important opportunity to advocate for doctors and researchers dealing with patients with rare cancers as well.

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Recorded on March 29, 2022

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This podcast was originally released by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine on April 22, 2022. 
Amy Heimberger, MD​ , Jean Malnati Miller Professor of Brain Tumor Research

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