Mayo Clinic Highlights GB13 Progress in DIPG Research

May 2026

Targepeutics’ collaborator David J. Daniels, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was recently featured in a Mayo Clinic news article discussing promising laboratory advances toward treatments for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)—a rare and devastating pediatric brain tumor with no currently approved targeted therapies.

A central focus of the interview is GB13, an immunotoxin directed at the interleukin-13 receptor subunit alpha 2 (IL-13Rα2), which is upregulated in most DIPG tumors. In a study recently published in Communications Biology (Rechberger et al., 2026), Dr. Daniels and colleagues demonstrated that combining radiotherapy with GB13 produced clear radiosensitization and increased tumor cell cytotoxicity in both patient-derived orthotopic xenografts and immunocompetent genetically engineered mouse models.

 

“Our studies clearly show that this drug works on the tumors that have this IL-13 receptor,” Dr. Daniels said in the interview. “This is also the only drug we’ve seen that has efficacy after just one dose. Every other drug we’ve tested has required multiple doses.” He also noted that GB13 targets an epitope expressed in tumor tissue but not in healthy tissue, helping to limit toxicity—adding, “This therapy definitely has merit.”

The Mayo Clinic team’s broader research program aims to translate these findings into clinical trials, alongside complementary work on novel drug-delivery strategies for pediatric brain tumors.

Read the full Mayo Clinic article here.