Targeting meningioma through immune interactions
Fast facts
- Title: Decoding the immunological landscape of meningioma to identify new treatment targets
- Lead Researcher: Dr Gelareh Zadeh
- Where: Mayo Clinic, Minnesota
- When: September 2025 – August 2030
- Cost: £1.5 million over 5 years
- Research type: Adult, meningioma
- Grant round: Quest for Cures
Meningiomas are amongst the most common brain tumours in adults. Whilst they are usually low grade and slow growing, they can sometimes be more aggressive. These high grade meningiomas often become resistant to radiotherapy, making one of the only available current treatment options ineffective to those diagnosed with an aggressive form.
With previous funding from The Charity, Dr Gelareh Zadeh and her team discovered four subgroups of meningioma. They also developed a new tool that can predict which tumours will behave more aggressively by looking at their genetic fingerprints. From this, they were able to detect tumours that are more likely to respond well to radiotherapy.
What is it?
Dr Zadeh is building on these discoveries to see if this tool can predict how meningiomas will respond to other types of radiotherapy. With her team, she will also be taking a closer look at the single cells that make up meningiomas to see how they communicate with each other, as well as with immune cells.
By studying these complex interactions, they hope to understand the reason why some subgroups of meningioma respond to radiotherapy whilst others do not. This new information should equip the team to choose better targets for treatment within the immune system.
Sorting meningiomas into their subgroups has previously been challenging, involving many costly experiments that can be time consuming. To combat this, Dr Zadeh and her team are now planning to use artificial intelligence (AI) to sort meningiomas into these groupings, just by looking at tissue samples under a microscope and MRI scans.
Why is it important?
Understanding the biology behind how meningioma cells interact with the immune system is vital for finding more effective treatment options, particularly for those diagnosed with aggressive meningiomas.
Unfortunately, the cost of complicated lab techniques is often a barrier to the amount of experiments that researchers can complete. Using AI to predict how meningiomas will respond to treatment using simpler experiments will reduce these costs. This will help the brain tumour community worldwide, making sure that people diagnosed with meningioma receive treatment that is best suited to their needs.
“This project will generate a valuable data resource and tools that can be shared globally, facilitating further research and accelerating advancements in treatment and diagnostics. Overall, this work represents a significant step toward personalised, effective care for meningioma patients.”
-Dr Gelareh Zadeh
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In this section
Dr. Gelareh Zadeh
Dr Gelareh Zadeh is a globally recognised neurosurgeon-scientist, with her clinical and research expertise focusing on skull base neuro-oncology and the molecular mechanisms underlying brain tumours, particularly meningiomas.