Glioblastoma Treatment Tracking Made Easier
Glioblastoma Treatment Tracking Made Easier
Publish Date: 2026-02-04 04:44:00
Source Domain: www.technologynetworks.com
Dr. Richard Lobb and Dr. Zhen Zhang from UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have opened a “window to the brain” with a new diagnostic device that can tell how deadly brain tumours respond to treatment from a simple blood test.
The new device, called a Phenotype Analyzer Chip, was developed in the laboratory of ARC Laureate Professor Matt Trau and reads tiny biological particles in a patient’s bloodstream to get fast and accurate information on glioblastoma.
Dr. Lobb said Glioblastoma was the most common form of brain cancer in Australia and is considered particularly deadly because of its delicate location, aggressive growth and limitations in accurate therapeutic monitoring.
“There has been very little success so far in clinical trials for new and experimental glioblastoma treatments,” Dr. Lobb said.
“That’s partly because there is no way to tell if a therapy is working precisely as it should at that moment without drilling into someone’s head.”
Dr. Zhang said the Phenotype Analyzer Chip works by examining small samples of blood and capturing messenger cells known as extracellular vesicles that originate from glioblastoma tumour tissue.
“These particles cross the blood brain barrier laden with information on the disease, and with our hypersensitive device we can pick them up and interrogate them,” Dr. Zhang said.
“It’s a completely new and non-invasive way of getting information on the brain.”
The device has been validated in more than 40 brain cancer patients and the Trau lab is now engaging with translational partners to implement the technology into clinical trials.
Professor Trau said glioblastoma patients usually had to wait until the later stages of the disease to check the therapeutic progress via MRI imaging.
“But by then it is often too late to pivot if these experimental therapies aren’t working as hoped,” he said.
“What we’re doing…
