Thread: Common Cold Virus to fight Cancer?

This seems an intriguing idea.

Common Cold used to fight Cancer by Stephanie Cauldron - Daily Telegraph.



A new way of fighting cancer using viruses including the common cold is to be tested, Cancer Research UK has said.
British scientists are hoping “virotherapy” could be the third arm to treating cancer alongside chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Patients with malignant tumours are typically treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy but if the cancer subsequently “spreads” it can be notoriously difficult to treat.


That is where virotherapy could come in..
Leonard Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University, has been working on the virus therapy with colleagues in London and the US, and will lead the trials on the new treatment later this year.
Using viruses to kill cancer cells directly, while avoiding harm to healthy tissue, is not a new idea.
The battle has been how to find a way of directly targeting cancer cells once they have split away from the tumour and spread.
Professor Syemour’s team uses chemically modified viruses which are spread via the bloodstream and geared to target cancer cells without being broken down by the immune system.
“In principle, you’ve got something which could be many times more effective than regular chemotherapy,” said Professor Seymour.
Richard Sullivan, Cancer Research UK’s director of clinical programmes, said: “We are pleased to be supporting this new and important research. Whilst this approach is still at an early stage of development it has exciting potential, particularly for the treatment of cancer which has spread, a notoriously difficult stage of the disease to treat.”
Under the best case scenario, it would be several years before any such treatment might be routinely available.

Originally Posted by Magpie

without being broken down by the immune system.

NO NO NO AND HELL NO!!
Normal virus... mix with this and you have superbug. It would be like aids but spreading like a flu virus instead of intercourse

you like Hybrids?!?