A Virus that Attacks Brain Cancer 131
Ponca City, We Love You writes "In the past few years, scientists have looked to viruses as potential allies in fighting cancer. Now researchers at Yale University have found a virus in the same family as rabies that effectively kills an aggressive form of human brain cancer in mice. Using time-lapse laser imaging, the team watched vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) rapidly home in on brain tumors, selectively killing cancerous cells in its path, while leaving healthy tissue intact. 'A metastasizing tumor is fairly mobile, and a surgeon's knife can't get out all of the cells,' says Anthony Van den Pol, lead researcher and professor of neurosurgery and neurobiology at Yale. 'A virus might be able to do that, because as a virus kills a tumor cell, it could also replicate, and you could end up with a therapy that's self-amplifying.' It's not yet clear why VSV is such an effective tumor killer, although Van den Pol has several theories. One possible explanation may involve a tumor's weak vascular system. Vessels that supply blood to tumors tend to be leaky, allowing a virus traveling through the bloodstream to cross an otherwise impermeable barrier into the brain, directly into a tumor."
Cure (potentially) worse than the disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes...and it may also mutate, and you'd wind up with a virus that has developed a taste for healthy brain cells. Granted, the chances are slight, but they're not nonexistent. Don't get me wrong...as the husband of a brain cancer victim, I find this development very exciting. I just have a habit of looking on the darker side of things.
Re:is this an "I am Legend" promo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Virus - Tumor - Immune System (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cure (potentially) worse than the disease? (Score:3, Insightful)
To do this in a normal human being, the virus would have to be engineered in such a way that the immune system somehow let's it go.
Now we have a virus that is engineered to avoid a human immune response. Throw in a dose of your mutation where it attacks human brain cells and we could have a SERIOUS problem on our hands. Scary.
Re:Cure (potentially) worse than the disease? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Human cells in mice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cure (potentially) worse than the disease? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cure (potentially) worse than the disease? (Score:2, Insightful)
Chemotherapy already suppresses normal immune response. Combine chemo and this, and you may have an effective treatment regimen for difficult tumors...
Re:is this an "I am Legend" promo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yet another cancer treatment... (Score:3, Insightful)
It *is* profitable to cure someone who has a cancer you can't treat.
Re:Human cells in mice? (Score:3, Insightful)
The virus might attack the primary tumor in mice as a result of its having been surgically disrupted during transplantation. That doesn't affect metastases though. Also, the virus might attack normal human cells while leaving normal mouse cells alone, but someone else pointed out that it doesn't normally infect people.
All in all, quite interesting. You're right though, you can't say for sure until you try it in a real person.
Re:is this an "I am Legend" promo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and FDA inspectors (at least the rank-and-file that I've encountered) are known for being very scrupulous -- they follow an strict inspection procedure that is openly published for examination, and are not allowed to accept even a cheap lunch.
I don't think so (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:is this an "I am Legend" promo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evolutionarily speaking (Score:4, Insightful)