Virus shows promise as cancer treatment
A single injection delivering a cancer targeting virus to tumour cells was shown to be effective in a study published in "Nature". According to Jennerex Biotherapeutics, who produced the JX-594 vaccine, the study represents the first trial of an intravenous oncolytic virus successfully expressing transgene products in humans.
Oncolytic viruses are of considerable interest in cancer therapy since they can selectively infect tumours and deliver genes encoding anticancer proteins. While most viruses now in trials are injected directly into tumours it is recognised that what is really needed are therapies that can be injected into the blood stream to seek out metastasized cancer cells.
The JX-594 vaccine is based on the vaccinia virus which has been widely used to vaccinate children against small pox. The vaccine's ability to target tumours is due to the fact that replication depends on Ras proteins which are active n almost all cancer cells.
Read the whole article at ecancermedicalscience
Keywords: oncolytic virus, cancer vaccine
6. 9. 2011 ecancermedicalscience
