PhD A. (Anne) Kleijn

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

Patients with a malignant brain tumor, called glioblastoma, have a very dismal prognosis despite current treatment, consisting of surgery, chemo and radiotherapy. There are no curative treatment options and in most patients the tumor recurs with a year. The first part of this thesis is focused on the development of a better tumor cell culture system in which new treatments can be tested on tumor cells which are directly derived from the patients tumor. These cells better represent the tumor of the patients and can predict the response to the chemotherapy. The second part of the thesis is focused on oncolytic virotherapy as a new treatment for glioblastoma. Oncolytic viruses can replicate in tumor cells. This will kill the tumor cell. The virus cannot kill healthy cells. Research presented in this thesis shows that, next to this direct effect, an immune response against the tumor is elicited. In a mouse glioma model this an important part of the treatment effect. In the final chapter of the thesis, an oncolytic virus is tested in patients with a recurrent glioblastoma. We show that this is a safe treatment in humans and that in a subset of these patients the immune system is reacting.