Dr. Bota on Marizomib in Patients with Glioma

Daniela Bota, MD, PhD, medical director, Neuro-Oncology Program, associate professor, Neurology School of Medicine, UC Irvine Health, discusses marizomib for the treatment of patients with glioma.

There are a few very important characteristics of this agent, Bota says, the first of which is that marizomib has demonstrated positive results in multiple glioma studies, both in vitro and in vivo. Next, the emerging drug seems to be effective in eradicating glioblastoma stem cells—the target for which it appears to have the most affinity. In preclinical studies, data show that marizomib can stop tumor growth.

Additionally, the agent is an irreversible proteasome inhibitor, meaning that once it binds to proteasome molecules and removes them, they cannot be recovered. This is in contrast to some of the more common reversible proteasome inhibitors. Marizomib can also target all 3 units of the proteasome.