Patient gliomas, and particularly GBM, have undergone a lot of molecular profiling, resulting in many genes/pathways of  therapeutic interest IF their involvement in the development or progression of the disease was confirmed. However, proving that involvement (i.e. target validation) is problematic because it requires accurate preclinical models. May models exist in GBM research, each with different pros and cons, but no single one recapitulates the human disease. In addition, the models with most patient relevance are notoriously difficult to establish and run, meaning most groups rely only on one model, or stick to those that don’t necessarily reflect patient biology. Ideally, candidate targets should be assessed via functional genomics approaches (gene knock-in, knock-down or knock-out) in a variety of well-characterised models(including molecular characterisation and response to standard treatment) using assays relevant to the suspected biological mechanism. The aim of the GlioModel consortium is to set up a multi-centre resource to bring together the necessary skills to facilitate this.
