Common Cold Virus Attacks Cancer, Study Finds
A virus that causes the common cold can also track and attack tumors, according to a new study that opens the door to novel cancer treatments.
British researchers injected reovirus into the bloodstreams of 10 patients with bowel cancer that had spread to the liver and found the virus set up deadly “reproduction factories” in the tumors but not in healthy tissue.
“It seems that reovirus is even cleverer than we had thought,” study author Dr. Alan Melcher, professor of clinical oncology and biotherapy at Leeds University in the U.K. said in a statement. “By piggybacking on blood cells, the virus is managing to hide from the body’s natural immune response and reach its target intact. This could be hugely significant for the uptake of viral therapies like this in clinical practice.”
The findings, published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggest cancer-killing viruses can target hard-to-treat tumors after being injected into the bloodstream like standard chemotherapies.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.