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A Virus that Attacks Brain Cancer
Ponca City, We Love You writes "In the past few years, scientists have looked to viruses as potential allies in fighting cancer. Now researchers at Yale University have found a virus in the same family as rabies that effectively kills an aggressive form of human brain cancer in mice. Using time-lapse laser imaging, the team watched vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) rapidly home in on brain tumors, selectively killing cancerous cells in its path, while leaving healthy tissue intact. 'A metastasizing tumor is fairly mobile, and a surgeon's knife can't get out all of the cells,' says Anthony Van den Pol, lead researcher and professor of neurosurgery and neurobiology at Yale. 'A virus might be able to do that, because as a virus kills a tumor cell, it could also replicate, and you could end up with a therapy that's self-amplifying.' It's not yet clear why VSV is such an effective tumor killer, although Van den Pol has several theories. One possible explanation may involve a tumor's weak vascular system. Vessels that supply blood to tumors tend to be leaky, allowing a virus traveling through the bloodstream to cross an otherwise impermeable barrier into the brain, directly into a tumor."
Doctor: I have good news and bad news. The good news is, your cancer is under remission.
Patient: And the bad news?
Doctor: We gave you rabies.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
IIRC, in 28 Days, the virus involved was being developed as a bioweapon rather than as a cancer cure.
I don't think that this will lead to a zombie plague, though--I think it's more likely if something goes wrong that the patient would die of encephalitis or something similarly unpleasant.
A 'zombie-like' state would require the virus to target fairly specific areas of the brain--temporal lobes and the like, if I'm remembering my brain geography correctly. Though, of course, this depends on whether you want to produce the 'traditional' shambling-servant type, or the hip new raging maniac type.
Still, if it's a choice between possible death and even more possible death, or between possible zombification and likely death, I'd take the risk. Brain tumors can really mess you up, y'know?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Yes...and it may also mutate, and you'd wind up with a virus that has developed a taste for healthy brain cells. Granted, the chances are slight, but they're not nonexistent. Don't get me wrong...as the husband of a brain cancer victim, I find this development very exciting. I just have a habit of looking on the darker side of things.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Well, to be fair, Edward Jenner had no sweet clue why cowpox would protect someone from smallpox, but once he figured out how to protect people, it was in his best interests to protect as many people as possible rather than waiting for the full 'why' before doing something.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
That why I prefer G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate for all my pacification needs. Better living with chemistry!
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
I second that. At least with this method if you do become a raging zombie, with the click of a button ,those little buggers can play a round of Dig-Dug in your head thus sparing humanity the ensuing brain eating rampage.
I think the main part here is that the virus can penetrate the blood - brain barrier. The reason we don't die all from encephalitis during every cold is that the brain is very well screened against infectious agents. So it doesn't really matter what virus we're using for this, it's the fact that the virus can selectively penetrate into tumor tissue that's the importance of the discovery.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
You see, I, the great Doctor Alexander von Hubris, have found a means by which to re-animate dead cells! But those foolish, short-sighted politicians cut my funding! My colleagues called my research "irresponsible" and "dangerous". And the ethics review panel called my experiments "troubling" and "unnecessarily painful". The fools! They laughed, they all laughed!
But now, I can cure all diseases, because I have now found a way to bring dead tissue back to life! Yes, certain... shall we say, sacrifices... had to be made, but it was all in the name of science! And now, now I have found that which mankind has always dreamed of: a path to immortality. And nothing, I tell you, nothing can possibly go wrong! Tonight, I will test my technique on myself, and then you will see, you will all see!
I believe that 6,000 to 12,000 people are diagnosed with this every year and the death rate for GBM is 100% with an average LE of only 4 - 18 months with successful treatment. All joking aside, anything that can help is welcome.
This is not the first virus found that can kill cancer. The "Reovirus" (commonly found in human respiratory and enteric tracts) also seems to work pretty well. See the following: Curing Cancer? Patrick Lee's Path to the Reovirus Treatment and Reovirus to target cancer
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Hunting humans is generally frowned upon in modern society but if we loaded dart guns with anti-tumor brain virus and let hunters track cancer victims through a jungle or something then the patient and hunter could go dutch on the treatment. The patient's give them a good hunt and the hunter bags their prey. The incentive for the patient is that they don't have to pay for any of the treatment if they evade the hunter for 3 days.
In the end the hunter gets a happy picture of a bald person with a dart in their ass as a trophy and the patient gets their expensive treatment. We could handle vaccinations for poor 3rd world kids the same way. Next time Angela Jolie goes to bumbuck nowhere I say we hand her a rifle with MMR shots.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'