RE: Gallium maltolate and cisplatin co-treatment effectively targets triple-negative breast cancer in spheroid and mouse models11 Sep 2025 08:14
The following extract informs us about the GaM preparation used in MCW’s GliB Ph 1 trial. It was further “developed” and tested at MCW. We are not told whether it is the same as the original preparation, which was patented elsewhere?
This was the reason for my previous question about the “stakeholders”, in addition to IB, with an interest in MCW’s trial? If anyone has further information about this I would be grateful if it could be shared on this forum.
“The treatment evolved from years of research led by Christopher Chitambar, MD, and his lab to study iron-dependent processes in cancer biology and the mechanisms by which gallium compounds target iron metabolism and block malignant cell growth. In preclinical studies, Drs. Chitambar and Kathleen Schmainda, PhD, discovered that gallium maltolate (GaM) significantly slowed the growth, and reduced the size, of glioblastoma.
GaM, originally developed by Harvard and Stanford educated scientist Lawrence R. Bernstein, PhD, is an orally available form of the metal gallium, which, in the body, shares many chemical properties with the highly oxidized form of iron, called Fe(III). Numerous studies examining the relationship between iron and cancer show that increased levels of iron in the body can be associated with increased cancer risk and severity, because cancer cells depend on iron to multiply and spread. Because of gallium’s similarity to Fe(III), it enters cancer cells instead of iron, preventing their multiplication.
“The discovery that GaM has anticancer activity against glioblastoma in pre-clinical studies is extremely exciting; it opens the door for developing it as a drug for treatment of glioblastoma in patients,” says Christopher Chitambar, MD, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Biophysics, at MCW. “The anticancer mechanism of GaM applies to other solid tumors as well,”