A study "Long-term Survival in Glioblastoma with Cytomegalovirus pp65-Targeted Vaccination", which is published in Clinical Cancer Research, now provides a way to improving treatment of the most common malignant brain tumor in adults, glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is almost uniformly fatal, and the median survival is less than 15 months. Despite great breakthroughs in basic cancer research, the therapies in GBM have accomplished little to improve patients' overall survival. New approaches to therapy are in urgent need. The DNA alkylating agent temozolomide (TMZ) is one of the most potent chemotherapy drugs for glioblastoma. However, half of glioblastoma tumors can become resistant to TMZ. In addition, TMZ may cause side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite, and fatigue. A study from Duke University Medical Center has found a way to enhance the therapeutic effect of TMZ. They demonstrate that combination of TMZ and an experimental vaccine is well tolerated by and significantly increases survival of patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Growing evidence shows that human cytomegalovirus proteins are expressed in the vast majority of glioblastoma tumors, and that these proteins are not present in surrounding normal brain tissue. This provides a theoretical basis that cytomegalovirus proteins can be targeted to treat glioblastoma tumors. In previous studies, Duke University Medical Center researchers discovered that targeting cytomegalovirus pp65 using dendritic cells can prolong patient survival, and that high doses of TMZ, combined with an immune-stimulating factor called GM-CSF, can enhance immune responses to tumor-specific antigens in patients with glioblastoma. For the current study, the researchers set out to evaluate the safety, effectiveness, and feasibility of using high doses of TMZ along with the dendritic cell vaccine admixed with GM-CSF. They found that despite side effects following TMZ treatment, patients with glioblastoma receiving the dendritic cell vaccine showed improved antigen-specific immunity and long-term survival. (CusAb offers GM-CSF and cytomegalovirus related proteins and antibodies such as polyclonal antibody)