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FDA Approves Drug That Uses Herpes Virus To Fight Cancer (nature.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the unlikely-hero dept.

An anonymous reader writes: U.S. regulators have approved a first-of-a-kind drug that uses the herpes virus to infiltrate and destroy melanoma. Nature reports: "With dozens of ongoing clinical trials of similar 'oncolytic' viruses, researchers hope that the approval will generate the enthusiasm and cash needed to spur further development of the approach. 'The era of the oncolytic virus is probably here,' says Stephen Russell, a cancer researcher and haematologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. 'I expect to see a great deal happening over the next few years.' Many viruses preferentially infect cancer cells. Malignancy can suppress normal antiviral responses, and sometimes the mutations that drive tumour growth also make cells more susceptible to infection. Viral infection can thus ravage a tumour while leaving abutting healthy cells untouched, says Brad Thompson, president of the pharmaceutical-development firm Oncolytics Biotech in Calgary, Canada."

30 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nice. How novel is that? As ugly as a cold sore is, how preferential it might be to eminent death...

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nice. How novel is that? As ugly as a cold sore is, how preferential it might be to eminent death...

      The virus is modified to preferrentially attack only melanoma cells and not healthy cells so there minimal chance of getting a cold sore.

    2. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by SydShamino · · Score: 1

      Unless of course the melanoma was on your lip...

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    3. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The "newscaster" should have still said it properly. Or maybe he's just one of those nuke-you-lear folks.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      The theory is pretty old though, and well-known enough that there was a House episode on it (House VS God from Season 2).

      There have been recordings of cancer remissions and tumors being shrunken by viruses since the 19th century, and we've known for a long time that the herpes virus is particularly effective at this.

      What we didn't have before was a way to boost that efficacy to the level where it was a reliable treatment. Previous cases were almost entirely down to observed events in accidental infections. Of course, current cancer treatments are all rather bad for the immune system which actually made it more effective than it would have been if you were not getting those as well.

      The big change is that we can now modify genes - including virus RNA to take something that occasionally worked by accident, and make it into a reliable treatment.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    5. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      Well... you never know..

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    6. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by rmdingler · · Score: 1
      Regarding the faux pas,

      I'm not finding a ton of solace in the literary inaccuracy immanent in Hollywood script crafting.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    7. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by sociocapitalist · · Score: 1

      Nice. How novel is that? As ugly as a cold sore is, how preferential it might be to eminent death...

      Depends - are we talking about a teenager?

      --
      blindly antisocialist = antisocial
    8. Re:Herpes, the love bug, rides again. by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      It's a living organism, there is no such thing as "no chance" of anything. Living organisms mutate and do wildly unpredictable things in rare instances; hell, that's how we're able to discuss this. Now, that being said, the chances of something wildly rare and unpredictable happening with the virus versus the predictable sickness and death with the cancer, I'd take the virus any day but, not all people are that rational (just look at the anti-vaxxers).

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  2. Re:I can believe it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I used LSD and marijuana to cure my alcoholism.

    I've heard that iboga is anothe very effective plant for treating addiction. Of course it's a Schedule 1 drug in the "Land Of The Free". Legal in Canada though, so I've also heard. The Schedule 1 classification is total bullshit. Iboga is not a "happy fun party drug" at all. It's not a pleasant experience. It's a trying experience during which you confront what is wrong with your life. Often you meet your ancestors and they help you discover why your life was so empty and meaningless that you acquired an addiction in the first place. Many, many people have been healed by this herb from Africa. But the moral busybodies just love telling you what you may or may not do with your own body, life, and consciousness. That's just sad.

  3. Caves by anmre · · Score: 2

    mutations that drive tumour growth also make cells more susceptible to infection

    Interesting. Like cave dwelling creatures who've "lost" (by process of evolution) their sense of sight in order to enhance other senses. It's all good until some other creature invents a flashlight.

    1. Re:Caves by Chikungunya · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe not exactly like your example but more like creatures that lost their ability to run fast by overeating themselves to obesity, let loose a few bears and the fit ones will have much better chances of surviving.

      Cancer cells are in general very susceptible to infection, many times you can grow viruses in cell cultures coming from organisms that are not susceptible to that virus because the cultures are cancer cells. The problem is to make the virus lethal enough to kill efficiently the cancer but tame enough so the normal cells and organs are not affected too much. Similar to live vaccines but with a much more difficult balance to keep.

    2. Re:Caves by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Troll

      If I really wanted to get herpes I would fuck your mother. The problem is, she also has AIDS. Your mother's a slut!

      Someone just got here after watching the Republican debate.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Caves by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Try being blind for a few months. Your senses of touch, of spatial orientation, of proprioception, of hearing will all help fill in the blanks rather quickly. However, studies have shown that blind people also learn how to use the visual cortex to process data from their other senses, so they can be taught to echo-locate (if they haven't already learned themselves) quite impressively.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Caves by Your.Master · · Score: 1

      Yes, but none of that implies that the cave-dwelling creatures selected for the loss of sight so that their visual cortex could be repurposed. They're blind regardless of whether they could see if introduced to light.

    5. Re:Caves by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Somebody who was apparently very threatened by what they saw watching the debate and thus riled up.

    6. Re:Caves by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Yes, but none of that implies that the cave-dwelling creatures selected for the loss of sight so that their visual cortex could be repurposed. They're blind regardless of whether they could see if introduced to light.

      Never said it did. Just that the brain has a certain plasticity, and can repurpose parts to provide greater processing power for the other senses when blind (mri studies show this).

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  4. Eminent death by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    Nice. How novel is that? As ugly as a cold sore is, how preferential it might be to eminent death...

    I dunno... it might be a close call if I could get an eminent death out of it.

  5. Old news by just___giver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I first posted this 13 years ago. Sad how long it takes http://m.slashdot.org/story/40...

  6. Nice! by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    So like Legend but bad (distasteful sores)...

  7. herpes virus to fight cancer by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

    sweet, I'll never get cancer!

  8. Re:Remedies A go go! by Adriax · · Score: 2

    Herpes for Health. Curing cancer one night stand at a time.

    --
    I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
  9. Hmmmmmmm by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    "FDA Approves Drug That Uses Herpes Virus To Fight Cancer"

    I have to admit, I feel somewhat conflicted about this.

    And what about people who already have herpes, can they get a discount?

    Disclaimer: I lived through the 1970's and didn't get herpes, a fact that I'm rather proud of considering all of the sleazy girls I banged during that decade. Luck of the draw, I guess.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  10. Borg by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Many viruses preferentially infect cancer cells. Malignancy can suppress normal antiviral responses, and sometimes the mutations that drive tumour growth also make cells more susceptible to infection.

    I suspect the tumors will just add the viruses uniqueness to its own.

  11. Instantly thought of Ice Pirates! Space Herpie by Tighe_L · · Score: 1

    What a great movie. The late great Robert Urich. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  12. I work with one of the authors! by DaemonDan · · Score: 2

    This is so cool! I work just down the hall from Dr. Kaufman at CINJ. His lab is one of the labs developing these herpes virus cancer therapies. My lab uses vaccinia, the smallpox vaccine virus, doing similar research (I'm also working on a melanoma model). We use GM-CSF just like this one, but also add in some tumor-specific antigens to increase targeting to the tumors. It's quite exciting stuff, and we even had a promising clinical trial against pancreatic cancer recently.

    --
    Enjoy post-apocalyptic and singularity science fiction? Check out www.demonarchives.com, a new online graphic-novel.
  13. Re:Remedies A go go! by i+ate+my+neighbour · · Score: 1

    Maybe asking for a mercy fuck would be more reasonable now.

  14. Re:Could we PLEASE cure herpes, then, too? by chilenexus · · Score: 1

    Would it be worth it, if by curing herpes they end up making people immune to a cure for cancer?

  15. Would this cure be transmittable the old way? by chilenexus · · Score: 1

    It would be interesting if the discount plan for administering this cure was to sleep with your doctor. (Doesn't hurt that my doctor is the opposite gender as I, and definitely not unattractive)

    Just think, they could rename brothels to be "treatment centers".

  16. Reminds me of a Strangers With Candy episode by valles · · Score: 1

    Found it! https://youtu.be/AF3YU4lIpEc?t...