Projects we fund

Overview

Gliomas are a type of brain tumour, and are sadly the leading cause of death from cancer in children. Worryingly, the number of children being diagnosed with gliomas is rising. We need to find new ways to treat this aggressive cancer and prevent it from developing. In previous research, Prof Thomas Seyfried has shown that gliomas use glucose (sugar) and another nutrient called glutamine in a unique way, which helps these tumours to grow rapidly. In this project, Prof Seyfried and his team will investigate whether a special diet, called the ketogenic diet, has potential as a non-toxic treatment for glioma. The ketogenic diet is high in fat but low in carbohydrates, which reduces the amount of glucose available for the brain. The diet is currently used to treat childhood epilepsy, so it is already known to be safe for children. Using glioma cells grown in the lab and in preclinical models, they will study whether combining the ketogenic diet with drugs prevents glioma cells from using glucose and glutamine as fuel to grow. Prof Seyfried will also investigate in preclinical models whether the ketogenic diet could potentially be used to reduce the risk of developing gliomas in the first place.

What difference will this project make?

If this project is successful, this combination of a ketogenic diet and drugs could rapidly progress to be tested in children and adults with glioma. This could eventually provide a new option to treat gliomas, the leading cause of death from cancer in childhood. The ketogenic diet might also help children at risk of develop glioma to reduce their chances of developing the cancer.