# Local dual delivery of a chemotherapy and an anti-angiogenic agent from an injectable functionalized biodegradable biomaterial system for the treatment of gliomas

> **NIH NIH SC3** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY · 2020 · $108,975

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Each year, around 10,000 patients in the US are diagnosed with gliobastoma multiforme (GBM),
which is the most common, aggressive and high-grade form of these brain tumors (82% of
malignant gliomas). Currently, the median survival for this disease is around 21 months after
diagnosis. Despite advances in the different methods of therapy (i.e. radiotherapy,
immunotherapy and chemotherapy), the prognosis for gliomas has not been dramatically
improved through the years. For tumors located in the brain, systemic delivery of agents has to
overcome many obstacles for the successful delivery of the drug to the site including the critical
step of having to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB). Due to the difficulty and high cost related
to developing new therapeutics, focus should be placed on optimizing available drugs by ways
such as delivering them locally using biomaterials. Local delivery of an anti-angiogenic factor
(i.e. minocycline) and systemic delivery of a chemotherapy agent (i.e. bis-chloroethylnitrosourea
(BCNU) or temozolomide (TMZ)) has been shown to improve median survival compared to the
delivery of the systemic delivery of the chemotherapy agent alone in a rodent glioma model.
Thus far, a lot of studies have been performed to study the delivery of both of these factors
systemically or one factor systemically and the other factor locally to treat gliomas. However, the
local deliver of both of these agents by combining both of them in an implantable device has not
been investigated. It is hypothesized that the local delivery of both a chemotherapy agent that
will impede the growth of cancer cells and an anti-angiogenic factor that will block blood vessel
formation can better inhibit cancer progression compared to the delivery of these drugs
systemically or locally alone. An ideal therapy should target tumor cells and avoid damaging
non-tumor cells which can result in memory impairment, decline in brain function and low quality
of life. CD44 and CD105 have been shown to be highly expressed on human glioma cell lines
and endothelial cells, respectively and thus we further hypothesized that biomaterials
functionalized with antibody against these markers can decrease non-targeted toxicity and
increase bioactivity on targeted cells. The overall goal of this proposal is to develop a
biodegradable composite system that has the ability to sustain the release of a chemotherapy
and an anti-angiogenic agent and target cells of interest for glioma which may also be applied to
other tumor types. The results from this work will contribute to the development of more
effective therapies for the treatment of brain gliomas.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9855345
- **Project number:** 1SC3GM135138-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Sue Anne Chew
- **Activity code:** SC3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $108,975
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-03-16 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9855345

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9855345, Local dual delivery of a chemotherapy and an anti-angiogenic agent from an injectable functionalized biodegradable biomaterial system for the treatment of gliomas (1SC3GM135138-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9855345. Licensed CC0.

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