Viruses used for good in cancer-killing experiments
Posted by: admin in Breakthrough Digest Medical News, Cancer News, Viral & Infection NewsTests show success, but general use not yet approved
Viruses aren’t always the bad guys. Sure, they can cause colds, measles, AIDS and other miseries. But with some tinkering, these tiny organisms may become a new and better way to treat cancer.
In the last few years, scientists have been genetically engineering various viruses so they attack cancer cells but leave healthy cells alone.
These oncolytic — cancer-destroying — viruses are being tested in hundreds of terminally ill patients for whom surgery, radiation and chemotherapy have failed.
Several of these experimental viruses target malignant brain tumors, like the incurable glioma that’s afflicting Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
“The past two years have seen several major advances in oncolytic virotherapy,” David Kirn, the president of Jennerex Biotherapeutics Inc., a biotechnology firm in San Francisco, reported in the journal Gene Therapy in April. “A large number of clinical trials have been carried out. Safety in humans has been demonstrated in more than 800 patients.”
So far, no cancer-killing virus has received U.S. government approval for general use in humans, but dozens of clinical trials are under way to determine their safety and effectiveness.
Some could be ready for doctors to use in the next two or three years, said Dr. Frank McCormick, a cancer researcher at the University of California in San Francisco. He cautioned, however, that many hurdles remain to be overcome before viral therapy will be part of usual medical practice.
Ways must be found to defeat the body’s natural immune system, which is primed to destroy invading viruses. Early results show that viruses can shrink a local tumor, but stopping cancer from spreading, or metastasizing, is much harder, McCormick said.
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