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Oncolytic Viruses Gain Traction in the Medical Community

The research is overwhelmingly positive and recent clinical studies indicate a thumbs-up response from oncologists. As science has taught us in the past, the worst of problems can bring out the best solutions. This is the case with oncolytic virotherapy treatments – viruses being reconstituted so to speak to bring forth revolutionary attacks on cancer cells. The destructive nature of the viruses themselves are being used to treat advanced stage cancer in a myriad of different cancer types of stages. Used alone, or in conjunction with other treatment modalities, the oncolytic virotherapies are taken from a wide variety of viral origins.

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 Oncolytic virotherapy as immunotherapy

Oncolytic virus (OV) therapy is now something of a misnomer. The initial paradigm was that naturally occurring or genetically engineered viruses would preferentially infect, replicate in, and lyse cancer cells relative to normal cells, leading to selective direct cytotoxicity. The immune system used to be considered detrimental, given its potential to recognize and respond to the virus, prevent its replication, and limit viral spread and tumor cell killing (1). This view has now been largely replaced by a model in which infection of the tumor by the virus makes it more visible to the immune system for recognition and attack.

 Oncolytic Viruses: A New Class of Cancer Immunotherapy

Since the late 1800s, doctors have observed that some patients with cancer go into remission, if only temporarily, after a viral infection. Although the notion of using viruses in cancer therapy is old, the science only began to move forward in the 1990s with advances in genetic engineering technology with another shift around 2005, as people began to realize the true value of viruses in cancer therapy is in immunotherapy.

 Viruses Might Offer New Help in Treating Cancer

Unmasking viral genes in our DNA may trigger an immune response that destroys cancer cells.

Articles of Interest

A 'huge milestone': approval of cancer-hunting virus signals new treatment era

Imlygic programs viruses to attack only cancer cells and gives patients more humane options – potentially ‘a complete change in the game’ in treatment

Can Viruses Be Used To Fight Cancer?

Oncolytic, or cancer-lysing viruses, are being tested by researchers, to see if they efficiently kill cancer cells with minimal side effects.

Effective combination immunotherapy using oncolytic viruses to deliver CAR targets to solid tumors

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)–engineered T cell therapy for solid tumors is limited by the lack of both tumor-restricted and homogeneously expressed tumor antigens. Therefore, we engineered an oncolytic virus to express a nonsignaling, truncated CD19 (CD19t) protein for tumor-selective delivery, enabling targeting by CD19-CAR T cells.

How Oncolytic Virus Therapy is Changing Cancer Treatment

More recently, viruses have been used to target and attack tumors that have already formed. These viruses—some, but not all, of which have been modified—are known as oncolytic viruses and they represent a promising approach to treating cancer for several reasons:

Oncolytic Virotherapy as Cancer Treatment

Virotherapy as a cancer treatment stemmed from the observation that occasionally, cancer patients would undergo transient remissions after contracting a viral disease. Oncolytic virus therapy medically can be either genetically engineered or naturally occurring virus that can selectively replicate and kill cancer cells without harming the normal tissues.

Oncolytic Virus Therapy That Destroys Cancer In Solid Tumors Given To First Patient In New Trial

The clinical trial is expected to run for two years, with the primary outcome being to assess whether the therapy is safe and to find a tolerable dose.

Oncolytic virus therapy: A new era of cancer treatment at dawn

Oncolytic virus therapy is perhaps the next major breakthrough in cancer treatment following the success in immunotherapy using immune checkpoint inhibitors. Oncolytic viruses are defined as genetically engineered or naturally occurring viruses that selectively replicate in and kill cancer cells without harming the normal tissues.

Oncolytic Viruses for Cancer Therapy: Barriers and Recent Advances

Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are powerful new therapeutic agents in cancer therapy. With the first OV (talimogene laherparepvec [T-vec]) obtaining US Food and Drug Administration approval, interest in OVs has been boosted greatly. Nevertheless, despite extensive research, oncolytic virotherapy has shown limited efficacy against solid tumors.

The emerging role of oncolytic virus therapy against cancer

With genetic engineering, we can now design live replicating viruses to not only be highly tumor selective through cell entry and transcription targeting but also armed with reporter genes for noninvasive monitoring of the pharmacokinetics of virotherapy, and for enhancing cytotoxic activity or immunogenic cell death, or immune modulators.

The First Cancer-Killing Virus Gets FDA Approval

It's not going to cure cancer, but it paves the way for some interesting new research.

Using Oncolytic Viruses to Fight Cancers

Can viruses be heroes? It is well-known that some viruses can cause severe infections in the body. However, when modified in the correct way, these small molecular entities can be used as an additional arsenal in the immune tool bag, to kill even bigger and scarier enemies… such as cancer.

Viruses Recruited as Killers of Tumors

Unlike chemotherapy, which can diminish in effectiveness over time, oncolytic viruses multiply in the body and gain strength as the infection becomes established. In addition to attacking cancer cells directly, some also produce an immune response that targets tumors.

Resources

Virotherapy.com

The International Virotherapy Center was established in 2008 by leading oncologists, immunologists, scientists, and by Prof. Aina Muceniece who is the pioneer of oncolytic Virotherapy and first approved oncolytic medicine Rigvir discoverer. International Virotherapy Center (IVC) mission is to provide virotherapy for every cancer patient and doctors worldwide.