You may not care to eat genetically modified eggs and ham regarless of their color, but would you be willing to get injected with a genetically modified virus to save your life?
An Ottawa-based research team has developed a virus that is showing promise as a new way of attacking and shrinking cancer tumours while leaving healthy tissue alone... patients agreed to receive a single infusion of an experimental virus into their blood, called JX-594... The JX-594 virus has been genetically engineered to enhance its natural anti-cancer properties.
This was not a trial of the virus's efficacy in attacking cancer cells; it was only a trial to determine whether injecting the virus was relatively safe. That part was a great success...
None of the 23 patients experienced significant side effects from the virus injection, with the most common side effect being mild to moderate flu-like symptoms that lasted less than one day.
And as an amazing added bonus...
...six of eight patients in the two highest dose groups experienced a shrinking or stabilization of their tumours, while those in lower dose groups saw less of this effect.
Further trials will be necessary to establish that the therapy really works, of course. Nonetheless, the concept of using viruses to attack cancer cells may turn out to revolutionize cancer therapy:
... the advantage of therapeutic viruses is that they can be sent through the blood, infect the cancer tumours and leave the healthy tissue alone...
"Oncolytic viruses are unique because they can attack tumours in multiple ways, they have very mild side effects compared to other treatments, and they can be easily customized for different kinds of cancer"
There are the usual caveats:
... even if this treatment is shown to be effective in cancer patients, it would be years before it would be widely available... We may be three, five or seven years away before this is mainstream.
The study was done in Canada, at the Ottawa Hospital Research Instute. Canada, that crazy land to the north of us where people get their health care without worrying about pre-existing conditions or whether they will have to mortgage their house and kids to pay for it.
Now if they can also cure cancer in our lifetime...