Des Étoiles dans la mer, Vaincre le glioblastome supports Mint research on glioblastoma

On Tuesday 10 December 2024, the association Des Étoiles dans la mer, Vaincre le glioblastome granted Cécile Doualle, PhD student at Mint to persue her work on the harmful effects of glioblastoma stem cells, the most aggressive of all primary brain cancers.

‘We place our hope in your hands’ said Carole Chiron, the association's representative for Maine-et-Loire

The association Des Étoiles dans la mer, Vaincre le glioblastome was founded in 2019 on the initiative of Laëtitia Clabé-Levère, and has a three main objectives: to fund medical research (875,000 euros distributed in 5 years), to help and support the families of patients, and to raise public awareness on this tumour. This is the first time that the Montpellier-based association has funded thesis work.

Every year, some 3,500 new cases of glioblastoma are diagnosed in France. The most common primary brain cancer, it is also extremely virulent. Even after surgical, drug and radiotherapy treatment, recurrence is the rule. The median survival rate after conventional treatments is less than 2 years. Within the Mint lab and the CHU in Angers, Cécile Doualle, supervised by Drs Franck Letournel and Julien Gouju, has been working for the last 3 years, as part of a doctoral thesis funded by the University of Angers, on the causes of resistance to treatment. She is particularly interested in glioblastoma stem cells, which are capable of surviving treatment and then regenerating the tumour.

In particular, Cécile Doualle has developed stem cell models enabling her to identify their weaknesses and test different therapies in vitro, in order to select the most active molecules for these cells. ‘I have tried to combine molecules to create synergies that increase the therapeutic effectiveness on these cells, which are very good at adapting to treatments’, explains the young researcher, whose work has been regularly presented to the scientific community, notably through a publication.

Cécile Doualle is also trying to bypass the blood-brain barrier, which isolates the brain from the rest of the body but represents a natural obstacle to drug delivery. His idea is to encapsulate the active substances ‘in small packages’, nanoparticles that will pass through the barrier before delivering the active molecules on the other side. One of the routes being explored is through the nose. ‘I dream of developing an effective nasal spray’.

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