Nasal Drops May Help Body Fight Deadly Brain Cancer

By Hannah Millington

Health Reporter

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Nasal drops may offer a new non-invasive way to help the body fight aggressive and deadly brain cancers.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and Northwestern University have developed a technology that uses precisely engineered structures made from tiny materials to deliver tumor-fighting medicine to the brain—through the nose.

In mice studies, they found the new method effectively treated glioblastoma by boosting the brain’s immune response. "In the lab, we use carefully dosed liquid drops in the nose of mice," paper author and neurosurgeon professor Alexander Stegh, of Washington University, told Newsweek.

While the nasal spray is not presently consumer-ready, Stegh said that when it does move into the clinic, "the end product would likely look and feel very similar to a conventional nasal spray but the formulation and device would have to be optimized for stability, dosing accuracy and deep nasal delivery."

Glioblastomas are a fast growing type of brain tumor—the most common type of cancerous (malignant) brain tumor in adults. In the U.S., more than 12,000 cases are diagnosed each year, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. Treatments like surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy can help prolong survival, though there is currently no cure.

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“We wanted to change this reality and develop a noninvasive treatment that activates the immune response to attack glioblastoma,” said Stegh in a statement.

“With this research, we’ve shown that precisely engineered nanostructures, called spherical nucleic acids (SNA), can safely and effectively activate powerful immune pathways within the brain. This redefines how cancer immunotherapy can be achieved in otherwise difficult-to-access tumors.”

Glioblastoma tumors are “cold tumors,” meaning they do not induce the body’s natural immune response like “hot tumors” do, which make them easier to treat with immunotherapies, to the researchers noted.

"In our current work, we show that the new SNAs not only shrink tumors but also 'warm up' an otherwise cold, immunosuppressed tumor environment, making checkpoint inhibitors work far better—precisely the type of immune reprogramming we would hope to achieve in patients," Stegh said.

The team developed a way to ignite an immune reaction against tumors by stimulating a pathway within cells called stimulator of interferon genes (STING). STING is triggered when a cell detects foreign DNA and activates the immune system to respond to the threat.

While past studies have shown activating STING in glioblastoma tumors can spark the body’s immune system to better fight cancer, these agents break down quickly in the body and need to be delivered directly into the tumor. The need for repeated dosing relies on highly invasive procedures.

“We really wanted to minimize patients having to go through that when they are already ill and I thought that we could use the spherical nucleic acid platforms to deliver these drugs in a noninvasive way,” said study author Akanksha Mahajan, postdoctoral research associate at Washington University.

Their SNA structure has greater therapeutic potency compared to the standard delivery methods and can trigger activation of the STING pathway in specific immune cells, according to the team.

“This is the first time that it has been shown that we can increase immune cell activation in glioblastoma tumors when we deliver nanoscale therapeutics from the nose to the brain,” Mahajan said.

In their investigations, they showed the medicine could be delivered selectively to the brain and didn't spread to other parts of the body where it might cause unwanted side effects.

When applied in combination with drugs designed to help activate another type of immune cell T lymphocytes, the new therapy reportedly eradicated the tumors with just one or two doses and induced long-term immunity against their recurrence.

Taken together, the results were much better than those of current STING-activating immune therapies.

Stegh emphasized that triggering the STING pathway isn’t capable of curing glioblastomas without reinforcement from other therapeutic approaches and they are further developing ways to strengthen the nanostructure by activating other immune responses.

This could allow physicians to double or triple the therapeutic targets all in a single therapy.

“This is an approach that offers hope for safer, more effective treatments for glioblastoma and potentially other immune treatment-resistant cancers, and it marks a critical step toward clinical application,” said Stegh.

Further studies will need to determine how the results translate in people.

Do you have a tip on a health story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about brain cancer? Let us know via [email protected].

Reference

Mahajan, A. S., Dussold, C., Kim, S., Jarvis, R., Hurley, L. A., Tommasini-Ghelfi, S., Park, J., Forsyth, C. M., Zhang, B., Miska, J., Heimberger, A. B., Mirkin, C. A., & Stegh, A. H. (2025). cGAS-agonistic spherical nucleic acids reprogram the glioblastoma immune microenvironment and promote antitumor immunity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(45), e2409557122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409557122

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