The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Cancer-killing virus find
Oxford University scientists hopeful innovative therapy could be tested on humans next year
Scientists have equipped a virus that kills carcinoma cells with a protein so it can also target and kill adjacent cells that are tricked into shielding the cancer from the immune system and supplying it with growth factors and nutrients.
Researchers at Oxford University said it is the first time cancerassociated fibroblasts within solid tumours have been specifically targeted in this way.
They believe if further safety testing is successful, the dual-action virus – which they have tested in human cancer samples and in mice – could be tested in humans with carcinomas as early as next year.
Currently, any therapy that kills the “tricked” fibroblast cells may also kill fibroblasts throughout the body – for example in the bone marrow and skin – and cause toxicity.
In this study, published in the journal Cancer Research, scientists used a virus called enadenotucirev, which is already used in clinical trials for treating carcinomas.
It has been bred to infect only cancer cells, leaving healthy cells alone.
They added genetic instructions into the virus that caused infected cancer cells to produce a protein called a bi-specific T-cell engager.
The protein was designed to bind to two types of cells and stick them together.
In this case, one end was targeted to bind to fibroblasts.
The other end specifically stuck to T-cells – a type of immune cell that is responsible for killing defective cells.
This triggered the T-cells to kill the attached fibroblasts.
The virus targets carcinomas, which are the most common type of cancer and start in cells in the skin or in tissues that line or cover internal organs, such as the pancreas, colon, lungs, breasts, ovaries and prostate.
Dr Nathan Richardson, head of molecular and cellular medicine at the Medical Research Council (MRC), which was involved in funding the study, said: “Immunotherapy is emerging as an exciting new approach to treating cancers.
“This innovative viral delivery system, which targets both the cancer and surrounding protective tissue, could improve outcomes for patients whose cancers are resistant to current treatments.”
Dr Kerry Fisher, from Oxford University’s Department of Oncology, who led the research, said: “These viruses are already undergoing trials in people, so we hope our modified virus will be moving towards clinical trials as early as next year to find out if it is safe and effective in people with cancer.”