TORONTO, May 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brain Cancer Canada (BCC), Canada's only 100% volunteer-driven charity dedicated exclusively to funding brain cancer research nationwide, is proud to award $75,000 to a progressive research project led by Dr. Thomas Hillen and his team at the University of Alberta. The project titled "The role of tumour microtubes for the growth, invasion, and treatment of glioblastoma: a mathematical modelling study" aims to grow our understanding of how glioblastoma cells communicate using tumour microtubes then to explore treatments that can take advantage of this new knowledge. 

Glioblastoma currently has an extremely poor prognosis contributed to by the speed with which the cancer cells grow and spread through the brain and by the limited effectiveness of today's treatment options. Research has already shown that tumour growth is guided in part by tumour microtubes which are long and thin microscopic extensions of the cancer cells, which eventually form a connected network of cells. 

Dr. Hillen reflects on the funded program, "Grade IV glioblastoma are the most severe brain cancers. Recent research has identified the basic mechanism of glioblastoma invasion via long and thin cell extensions, which ...