{"id":19482,"date":"2026-05-27T13:22:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/multi-drug-treatment-using-nanofibers-shows-promise-for-glioblastoma-university-of-cincinnati\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:22:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:22:43","slug":"multi-drug-treatment-using-nanofibers-shows-promise-for-glioblastoma-university-of-cincinnati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/multi-drug-treatment-using-nanofibers-shows-promise-for-glioblastoma-university-of-cincinnati\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-drug treatment using nanofibers shows promise for glioblastoma – University of Cincinnati"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers with the University of Cincinnati<\/a> and Johns Hopkins University developed a potential treatment for brain cancer that uses nanofibers embedded with a combination of drugs that work in concert to target tumors.
The drugs proved more effective in combination than when administered alone and can provide both immediate and long-lasting doses to kill cancer cells.
\u201cIn our study, a three-drug combination showed strong synergistic effects across multiple glioblastoma models and significantly improved survival in animal studies,\u201d said lead author Daewoo Han<\/a>, an assistant professor in UC\u2019s College of Engineering and Applied Science<\/a>.
Han and Distinguished Research Professor Andrew Steckl<\/a> incorporated the drugs into electrospun fiber membranes, creating a nanofiber drug delivery system. Steckl\u2019s NanoLab at the University of Cincinnati is a leading developer of this technology that uses an electric field to create a multilayered fiber mesh for drug delivery, among other uses.
\u201cThis combination is pretty powerful,\u201d Steckl said.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Johns Hopkins University developed a promising treatment for glioblastoma using three drugs in combination embedded in a mesh made from electrospun nanofiber. Photo\/Joseph Fuqua II\/UC
Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer in adults. Researchers at UC and Johns Hopkins found that the three federally approved drugs used to treat glioblastoma (temozolomide, acriflavine and PT2385) work better in combination than they would alone, a pharmaceutical phenomenon called synergism.
\u201cWhen you add them together, three things can happen,\u201d Steckl said. \u201cThe combination is negative; the effect is additive, like one plus one equals two; or it\u2019s synergistic, which is like one plus one equals three.\u201d
The study on synergistic glioblastoma treatment was published in <\/span>the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering<\/a>. The research was supported with a grant from the National Institutes of Health.<\/span>
Betty Tyler, M.D.,<\/span> Johns Hopkins University<\/span>
Steckl said glioblastoma is extremely difficult to treat because its heterogeneous cells allow for mutations that help the cancer evade treatment.
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to control,\u201d Steckl said. \u201cIt comes in through the window and when you close the window, it comes through the door. And when you close that, it comes through the chimney.\u201d
Glioblastoma also has high recurrence. And the blood-brain barrier limits the effectiveness of other traditional chemotherapies.
\u201cOur NanoMesh system was designed to solve these issues by enabling localized long-term delivery of multiple synergistic drugs directly at the tumor site after surgery,\u201d UC\u2019s Han said.
UC researchers worked with a team at Johns Hopkins led by Betty Tyler, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery. Tyler said researchers are looking to attack the disease with combinations of therapies.
\u201cUnfortunately, cancers know how to pivot to evade therapeutic treatment,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we\u2019re approaching treatment multidimensionally.\u201d
Tyler has helped develop other cutting-edge therapies now commonly used to treat cancer.
\u201cCurrent therapies have increased patient survival and given them more birthdays,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re still working on improving options.\u201d<\/span>
In animal trials, all untreated mice with glioblastoma died within 19 days. But a majority of mice treated with the three-layer nanofiber mesh survived twice as long. And 40% survived past the 120-day conclusion of the experiment in a plateau that stretched for more than 80 days.
Han said using electrospun fiber mesh, doctors can precisely control the dosage and release and the implant geometry, which contribute to its effectiveness. And just as the blood-brain barrier protects the brain from toxins, the barrier also protects the body from the toxic side effects of the medicine applied to the brain, Han said.
UC researchers are now working on optimizing the long-term release of medicines using advanced nanofiber structures. And the delivery system has broad potential in applications for other difficult-to-treat diseases, Han said.<\/span>
\u201cWhat\u2019s next will be very exciting,\u201d Han said. \u201cOur ultimate goal is moving forward to a clinically translatable system that improves both survival and quality of life for patients with difficult-to-treat cancers, including glioblastoma.\u201d
Featured image at top: UC researchers partnered with doctors at Johns Hopkins University to explore new treatments for brain cancer that use three drugs embedded in a nanofiber mesh. Photo\/Andrew Higley\/UC<\/i>
UC Distinguished Research Professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar Andrew Steckl poses with a statue of UC co-op founder Herman Schneider. Steckl teaches mechanical engineering in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science. Photo\/Andrew Higley\/UC
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Researchers with the University of Cincinnati and Johns Hopkins University developed a potential treatment for brain cancer that uses nanofibers embedded with a combination of drugs that work in concert to target tumors.The drugs proved more effective in combination than when administered alone and can provide both immediate and long-lasting doses to kill cancer cells.\u201cIn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}