Professor Simona Parrinello

At University College London, Professor Simona Parrinello is working on a very aggressive and hard to treat brain tumour called glioblastoma. She hopes that by picking apart certain aspects of glioblastoma’s complex biology, she can open up new treatment possibilities for a disease where survival remains stubbornly low. 

One of the main reasons that glioblastomas are so difficult to treat is their behaviour; they spread from the original tumour into different regions of the brain. This characteristic means that surgery and radiotherapy – cornerstone treatments for brain tumours – are limited in effectiveness. 

Prof Parrinello is studying how glioblastoma cells drive this invasive behaviour. She’s also homing in on a specific group of molecules that she found plays a crucial role in helping these cells spread along blood vessels. Through this work, Prof Parrinello aims to identify new targets that drugs could be designed against, in the hope of stopping this fatal process and ultimately, improving the outlook for people with glioblastoma. 

You can read more about Prof Parrinello’s work in our blog post.