At the Canary Center at Stanford for Early Cancer Detection, investigators studied how AshwaMAX (a steroidal lactone from a winter cherry plant, Withania somnifera, extract) might work as an oral treatment for those with the highly aggressive cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). A heterogeneous disease, non-specific therapies for GBM have proven largely ineffective. Two patient-derived GBM lines (GBM2, GBM39) and one GBM cell line were cultured to create neurospheres that were then exposed to various concentrations of AshwaMAX.  Celigo measured cell proliferation and cell death via Trypan Blue staining. AshwaMAX inhibited the neurospheres at nanomolar concentrations. After additional work in vivo, [...]