Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) and King’s College London (KCL) have been awarded £400k from The Brain Tumour Charity to accelerate a new approach to treat glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer.

Glioblastomas are highly aggressive and survival outcomes remain poor, with patients typically living just 12–18 months after diagnosis. Despite decades of research, there are still limited treatment options.

The new project brings together MDC’s expertise in focused ultrasound and advanced preclinical brain tumour models with KCL’s novel theranostic nanoparticle, ActNano. The nanoparticle can encapsulate multiple anticancer drugs and deliver them directly into brain tumours when activated by ultrasound. The aim is to test its safety, precision and effectiveness against the current standard of care — temozolomide chemotherapy and neurosurgery.

Claire Kavanagh, whose 19-year-old son Niall died just three weeks after being diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2021, welcomed the investment: “Research into brain tumours is so important to help prevent other families from going through the pain and heartbreak of losing loved ones who should be here with us,” she said.

“Glioblastoma remains one of the most aggressive and challenging cancers, with current treatments having limited impact on survival rates.”

Researchers hope ActNano could ultimately accelerate new treatments into human studies. Removing barriers to drug delivery to the brain and improving translation from early research to the clinic could help bring urgently needed therapies to patients faster.

Simon Newman, chief scientific officer at The Brain Tumour Charity, said the new Translational Award scheme is designed to “ruthlessly evaluate and drive the best concepts forward,” speeding up success but also cutting short projects that cannot translate to the clinic. “Through partnerships, we will develop industry-like standards of drug development to maximise the chances of success and future funding,” he added.

Paul Sharp, lead scientist for translational imaging at MDC, said the partnership is a crucial opportunity: “Glioblastoma remains one of the most aggressive and challenging cancers, with current treatments having limited impact on survival rates. Thanks to the support of The Brain Tumour Charity, this new project with King’s College London will allow us to combine and scale our technologies and bring this potential treatment closer to patients.”

Maya Thanou, professor in pharmaceutical nanotechnology at KCL, added: “This funding marks an important step in advancing ActNano from the lab towards the clinic. Our goal is to demonstrate its accuracy and assess how it could work alongside existing treatments, to develop a more precise and less toxic approach for both adult and paediatric patients.”

The Brain Tumour Charity launched its Translational Award in 2024 to support the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics, delivery mechanisms and devices. The MDC-KCL collaboration is one of the first projects to be funded under the scheme.