'Big Science, Small Pod' podcast: What do you do when your body is its own enemy?
Cancer researcher and physician-scientist Cheng-Chia "Fred" Wu describes how the blood-brain barrier, meant to protect your brain from viruses and toxins, also stands between cancers and the drugs that could kill them. Focused ultrasound could change that.
Lining the vessels that carry blood and oxygen to your brain, there’s a protective filter than keeps bad stuff from getting out of the bloodstream and into the brain where it can do harm. It’s called the blood-brain barrier.
But this feature becomes a problem when doctors need to get chemotherapy to a brain tumor. That protective barrier then stands between cancer and drugs that could treat it.
Physician-scientist Cheng-Chia “Fred” Wu of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute is investigating how to use sound to temporarily open that barrier to allow cancer drugs to reach brain tumors, like those caused by the highly lethal childhood cancer he treats, diffuse midline glioma.
In the latest episode of the podcast “Big Science, Small Pod,” Wu describes his work to combat this heartbreaking cancer by using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier.
“As a radiation doctor, I point beams to fight cancer. That's what we do. Point and shoot,” Wu said. “Ultrasound is very similar to radiation in many ways … and so when I first learned about it, I just felt that this was a technology that can really be transformative.”
More about Cheng-Chia 'Fred' Wu
Wu is an assistant professor with labs at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC in Roanoke and the Children's National Research & Innovation Campus in Washington, D.C., where he partners with Children's National Hospital on patient trials, including a pioneering effort to use low intensity focused ultrasound to treat pediatric brain tumors.
About the podcast
"Big Science, Small Pod" is a compact guide to the human body and how it works, powered by the world-class scientists of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. We ask fundamental questions about the human body, health, and disease, and get answers from research institute experts, who also tell us how their research illuminates these systems and how to better treat the diseases that affect them.
Listen and subscribe to "Big Science, Small Pod" on major podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube.