Common cold virus could destroy cancer tumours, reported by British scientists. They are preparing to launch clinical trials of this new way to fight cancer by injecting viruses like the common cold into cancer cells.
The viruses will be delivered locally to liver tumors, in order to establish whether the treatment is safe in humans and what dose of virus will be needed. Preliminary research on mice shows that the viruses work well on tumors resistant to standard cancer drugs. Leonard Seymour, a professor of gene therapy at Oxford University, who has been working with viruses that kill cancer cells directly while avoiding harm to healthy tissue, will lead the trials later this year, according to the report.
If successful, virus therapy could eventually form a third pillar alongside radiotherapy and chemotherapy in the standard arsenal against cancer, while avoiding some of the debilitating side-effects.