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Killing Cancer With Engineered Viruses

Posted by samzenpus on from the enemy-of-my-enemy dept.

techfun89 writes "Viruses can make us all sick, but one day could be engineered to defeat cancer. Cancer cells have one trait that may leave them open to attack. They aren't good at killing off viral infections, hence, at least in theory, you could use a virus to kill cancer cells without affecting the patient. Dr. Ian Mohr, a virologist at New York University, altered the herpes virus so that it isn't attacked by the immune system and kills cancer cells more efficiently. Another virus that is proving effective for liver cancer is Vaccinia. Vaccinia is used to protect against smallpox and so far the results have been promising. Several groups of patients have had an increase in survival times. Meanwhile other viruses are being used for things like melanoma, bladder cancer, and head and neck cancer."

17 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Good news everyone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, patient, we cured your cancer but now you have herpes. Feel better?

    1. Re:Good news everyone! by DC2088 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The answer would be a resounding yes. I'd rather have herpes than be dead.

    2. Re:Good news everyone! by ThatOtherGuy435 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Given that 90% of herpes is social stigma, and it's actually one of the least problematic STDs out there? Yes.

    3. Re:Good news everyone! by DurendalMac · · Score: 4, Informative

      No. This has already been done with HIV, and although the trial was small, the success was remarkable. They use the invasive traits of the virus with none of the nastiness. It's incredibly promising, so much that we may well have a cure (or at least a damned good treatment) for cancer within the next decade.

    4. Re:Good news everyone! by DurendalMac · · Score: 4, Informative

      Two went into complete remission. One saw a major remission, but it was not total. I'd say that's pretty damned promising, especially when one of the cured ones was perhaps a month or two away from the grave.

    5. Re:Good news everyone! by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just to shut down this line of reasoning: it requires a large number of genes for a virus to reproduce, which the researchers remove completely to make room for the more useful payload. In the case of the HIV-based study being described, that payload rewired one class of immune cells to identify another class of immune cells (which included the cancerous ones) and destroy them. Viruses crippled in this way can't spontaneously develop the ability to reproduce any more than a human eunuch can. Mutations occur during reproduction, which medically-engineered viruses have no opportunity for doing.

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    6. Re:Good news everyone! by srjh · · Score: 4, Informative

      From the latin vacca, or cow.

      Because the first steps towards a smallpox vaccine were based on the realisation that dairy workers who had contracted cowpox were immune to smallpox. Vaccinia is very closely related to cowpox, but has diverged from it slightly since the its widespread use as a vaccine.

      Because it was so successful as a vaccine, the name vaccination stuck.

      Miss that part of the story, and it's nowhere near as interesting.

  2. Obligatory xkcd by ericloewe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://xkcd.com/938/

  3. I found the NYT Article referenced in TFA better.. by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/health/research/viruses-are-recruited-and-flipped-as-cancer-killers.html?_r=2&ref=science

    Sounds interesting (especially as somebody who is at high risk for melanoma).

    myke

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  4. Isn't Attacked by the Immune System by medv4380 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sounds nice but once it mutates into something harmful what are you going to do?

    1. Re:Isn't Attacked by the Immune System by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 3, Informative

      It can't. Viruses mutate when they reproduce. These viruses have all of the genes for reproduction removed. They're essentially eunuchs.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  5. Another scientist in that area of research is by CmpEng · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dr. Bell at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, http://www.ohri.ca/profiles/bell.asp. He's been researching and using viruses to treat cancer in liver cancer. I believe it is currently in clinical trials in Europe and showing promise to not just kill cancer cells but cut off blood flow to the tumour which also helps to 'starve it'.

  6. HIV too! by Prien715 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Though the sample size is much smaller, the success rate is much higher. The theory here is different though: the HIV virus infects only T-Cells. T-Cells are responsible for "marking" bodily intrusions as harmful -- but rather than the traditional AIDs payload of "don't attack anything" going into them you alter the HIV virus's DNA to train the T-Cells to kill cancers. So in essence, it teaches your body how to treat cancer as an infection.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/health/13gene.html?pagewanted=all

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  7. Promising, but... by lax-goalie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...there's still tons of work to do.

    I've got a friend with brain cancer who was enrolled in one of the current virus trials - one which has shown great promise in animal studies. He ended up leaving the trial after a month or so, with tumor regrowth and tremendous swelling around the tumor site, causing all sorts of problems with speech, reading, and sight. He has surgery scheduled for tomorrow, after that, hopefully another trial.

    Not to be a downbuzz, but it's a long road before this kind of therapy is anything more than an experimental crapshoot.

  8. Problem by wanzeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with using living solutions to medical problems (as opposed to drugs) is the high rate of mutation. Perhaps you engineered the virus to kill the cancer cells, but 2 months and 40k generations later it could be doing something completely different.

    1. Re:Problem by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 3, Informative

      All viruses used in this manner are wired not to reproduce. It means you need to inject a lot more copies of the virus, but there's no chance of mutation in a virus that can't reproduce. And no, they can't spontaneously redevelop the huge number of genes necessary to reproduce; they don't even have the opportunity to do so. It's completely safe. They're just DNA injectors, and we're exploiting the side-effects that the viruses normally bundle with their (deleted) reproductive payloads. In this case, healthy cells are smart enough to fend off the infection, but cancer cells aren't, which is why they're cancerous in the first place.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  9. Bacteriophage by Hokan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    TFA makes it seem like the concept of pitting viruses against bacteria was developed in the '50s, but research has been ongoing for much longer, at least from 1896.

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage

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