Anti Cancer Virus

This is more extraordinary news on the cancer front.  We have already seen two other protocols that worked well enough to see off cancer and this gives us a third.  It is plausibly the best of all.

I say that because it becomes plausible to inject a working virus that does its duty and then goes dormant until another threat emerges.  Such a system could provide a lasting defense against a long series of cancers while stopping metastasis in its tracks.

I suspect that the traditional medical paradigm is due to be totally overturned.  It has been hugely gamed to prevent anything except a long slow and expensive treatment protocol.  There is now too many successful alternatives emerging to stop the revolution.

The new medicine will be about health restoration and actual cures will simply become another minor specialty.

Right now we can reasonably inject a suspension of nanogold to set up all tumors for a radio induced heat death and then follow that up with a virus vector that cleanses the whole body of any remnant cells.  It will all take a minimum time and effort and the patient walks out fully cured.

The present difficulty appears to be that no one knows how to make money at it.

'Anti-cancer virus' shows promise

By James GallagherHealth reporter, BBC News

1 August 2011 

Modified vaccinia virus can target cancer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14730608

An engineered virus, injected into the blood, can selectively target cancer cells throughout the body in what researchers have labelled a medical first.

The virus attacked only tumours, leaving the healthy tissue alone, in a small trial on 23 patients, according to the journal Nature.

Researchers said the findings could one day "truly transform" therapies.

Cancer specialists said using viruses showed "real promise".

Using viruses to attack cancers is not a new concept, but they have needed to be injected directly into tumours in order to evade the immune system.

Smallpox to cancer

Scientists modified the vaccinia virus, which is more famous for being used to develop a smallpox vaccine.

The virus, named JX-594, is dependent upon a chemical pathway, common in some cancers, in order to replicate.

It was injected at different doses into the blood of 23 patients with cancers which had spread to multiple organs in the body.

 I believe that some day, viruses and other biological therapies could truly transform our approach for treating cancer”

Prof John Bell University of Ottawa

In the eight patients receiving the highest dose, seven had the virus replicating in their tumours, but not in healthy tissue.

Prof John Bell, lead researcher and from the University of Ottawa, said: "We are very excited because this is the first time in medical history that a viral therapy has been shown to consistently and selectively replicate in cancer tissue after intravenous infusion in humans.

"Intravenous delivery is crucial for cancer treatment because it allows us to target tumours throughout the body as opposed to just those that we can directly inject."

Infection prevented further tumour growth in six patients for a time. However, the virus did not cure cancer. Patients were given only one dose of the virus as the trial was designed to test the safety of the virus.

It is thought that the virus could be used to deliver treatments directly to cancerous cells in high concentrations.

Prof Bell acknowledges that the research is still in the very early stages, but he said: "I believe that some day, viruses and other biological therapies could truly transform our approach for treating cancer."

Cancer Research UK's Prof Nick Lemoine, also director of Barts Cancer Institute, said: "Viruses that multiply in just tumour cells - avoiding healthy cells - are showing real promise as a new biological approach to target hard-to-treat cancers.

"This new study is important because it shows that a virus previously used safely to vaccinate against smallpox in millions of people can now be modified to reach cancers through the bloodstream - even after cancer has spread widely through the patient's body.

"It is particularly encouraging that responses were seen even in tumours like mesothelioma, a cancer which can be particularly hard to treat."