reovirus kills stem-breast cancer cells

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wallycat
wallycat Member Posts: 3,227
edited June 2014 in Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results
Harmless Virus May Be Deadly to Breast Cancer
HealthDay
By HealthDay - Fri Apr 10, 8:49 PM PDT

"We suspected that reovirus might be effective against cancer stem cells, because we have shown time and again how well it destroys regular cancer cells," Dr. Patrick Lee, a cancer researcher at Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said in a news release.

He explained the importance of targeting cancer stem cells.

"Cancer stem cells are essentially mother cells. They continuously produce new cancer cells, aggressively forming tumors even when there are only a few of them," said Lee, who added that cancer stem cells are resistant to chemotherapy and radiation.

"You can kill all the regular cancer cells in a tumor, but as long as there are cancer stem cells present, disease will recur," he said.

Lee noted that he and his colleagues tested reovirus on fresh breast cancer tissue removed from a patient, whereas most cancer studies use cancer cell lines developed for laboratory use. Not only does reovirus kill the cancer stem cells and cancer cells, it also stimulates the body's anti-cancer immune system, the Dalhousie team found.

They're now trying to find a way to harness the immune system to destroy cancer cells while allowing reovirus to freely infect and kill cancer cells.

"Refining this two-pronged approach to killing cancer is our next step. We are taking advantage of the natural characteristics of reovirus and the immune system itself to create a powerful virus-based anti-cancer therapy," Lee said.

The study appears in a recent issue of the journal Molecular Therapy.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about breast cancer.

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  • idaho
    idaho Member Posts: 1,187
    edited April 2009

    Who has it and where can I get it?!!!! Oh I hope we are so lucky!  Tami

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  • beastybabe
    beastybabe Member Posts: 196
    edited April 2009

    This sounds great....if it works it will change alot of womens lives...

    I wonder how you go about getting on human clinical trials????

    It will be interesting to see whether the big major pharmacutical companys will allow this as its essentially a cure and they will lose lots of money if they cant use chemo drugs and radiation.

    Heres hoping....it would be nice if something so simple could be so effective

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  • otter
    otter Member Posts: 6,099
    edited April 2009

    Here's the PubMed abstract of the original research article:   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19293772

    Apparently, the study was done in a specially derived strain of immunodeficient mice.  The human tumor tissue was implanted into the mice, which were unable to reject the "foreign" (human) tissue via normal tissue rejection mechanisms.  That allowed the tumor cells to grow unimpeded in the mice.  (Don't get too excited--that strategy has been used for quite awhile to investigate molecular mechanisms of tumor growth and experimental treatments.)

    Growing the tumors in the special strain of mice also allowed the researchers to test the effect of the virus on tumor cells in a live, biological system (i.e., a living animal)--albeit a mouse, not a human.  Previous work with the virus was done in cell cultures in plastic dishes.

    Apparently, the main "news" of this recent paper is that, when tested in the immunocompromised mice, the virus was able to kill not only the ordinary tumor cells (which everyone knew it could do, based on previous studies), but also the cancer stem cells.  Some people think cancer stem cells are resistant to some types of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, so they can serve as the source of recurrent tumors or metastases after treatment has been completed.

    Here's a link to the article, on the journal's website: http://www.nature.com/mt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/mt200958a.html

    Unfortunately, the journal has a 1-year "embargo", which means the articles cannot be accessed without $$$ until they are a year old.  So, all you can read on the journal's website is the abstract.  Without being able to read the actual paper, we really can't make an intelligent judgment about it.  Press releases and news articles just aren't good enough.  They are often filled with misinformation and bias.  That's why I've used the word, "apparently", in my comments.

    Here are some other PubMed abstracts for research papers describing the ability of the "oncolytic reovirus" to kill cancer cells: 

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11916487  

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17618222

    That second link is the abstract for a review article.  The abstract notes that reoviruses aren't completely harmless, especially in individuals with messed-up immune systems.  (Think "chemo".) 

    otter 

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  • mthomp2020
    mthomp2020 Member Posts: 1,959
    edited April 2009

    Beastybabe, I've wondered myself about how the big pharm co's will react to this this.  It seems most research is funded by the big pharm co's, so they only fund drug research.  Hopefully they can get funding for this. 

    There was a trial for a possible cure that was gearing up in Chapel Hill at a Baptist university there.  They know some people have a natural immunity to cancer, and they were going to collect blood from donors and transfuse people with advanced cancer to see if it will activate their immune systems to kill off the cancer.  The treatment had been proven to work in mice.  It would have cost the patient $100,000 to participate in this study.  It's now on hold, I suspect because they couldn't recruit enough blood donors and patients.  Naturally, there's no funding from a pharm co, since no drugs are involved, and if it works, it could seriously cut into their profits.

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  • beastybabe
    beastybabe Member Posts: 196
    edited April 2009

    Yeah that sounds about right Mthomp2020,

    At least its a good start and if it works....then it will be great for everyone except the drug companies..

    I guess we will have to wait and see

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  • wallycat
    wallycat Member Posts: 3,227
    edited April 2009

    I'll try to remember to add this article to my "go get" pile.

    I have access to a medical library and can get many articles for no cost.  If I can it, I will let you know.

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  • priz47
    priz47 Member Posts: 470
    edited April 2009

    otter,

    Thanks for the links, but the first one http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11916487 is a bit old, from 2002. There are many more current articles, specifically about the human trials that are going on. This does look promising and i think we all need to keep an eye on it.

    D

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  • Husband11
    Husband11 Member Posts: 2,264
    edited April 2009

    Is this the same thing as reolysin, or is that a different but similar therapeutic agent?

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  • beastybabe
    beastybabe Member Posts: 196
    edited April 2009

    Hi Ladies

    I emailed Dr Patrick Lee at the Medical School in Nova Scotia and he has emailed me back. He has said that there is a Canadian company that is doing human trials in the UK and the US, he also gave me their website to check out so Im passing it on to you and you can make up your own mind.

    www.oncolyticsbiotech.com

    Havnt looked at the website yet as only got the info today, but I will look at it as soon as I can.

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  • Maryiz
    Maryiz Member Posts: 975
    edited April 2009

    We need to keep this thread active.  It all sounds so promising, doesn't it?  Maryiz

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  • suzieq5002
    suzieq5002 Member Posts: 1
    edited May 2009

    The big pharmas are involved.  Some of the trials have found a synergy between Reolysin and radiation and/or chemotherapy and have thus combined them. While no one says "cure" the results have been excellent for a variety of cancers. 

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  • Maryiz
    Maryiz Member Posts: 975
    edited May 2009

    Wow, suzieq5002, this sounds great.  Does anyone know of this being used yet in breast cancer trials? Maryiz

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  • Maryiz
    Maryiz Member Posts: 975
    edited May 2009

    bump

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  • Lesley_Ann
    Lesley_Ann Member Posts: 8
    edited May 2009

    Im wondering too, about any more details about this...

    I am stage 3, triple negative, and am desperate to find something to give me hope

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  • Paola2
    Paola2 Member Posts: 10
    edited October 2012

    Anybody still interested????

    the Canadian group mentioned above is going to start a study om metastatic bc...use of Reolysin

    How do you get Reolysin???

    who has it????

    who has oncolytic viruses....besides the German money making clinics????

    Did anybody do a virus ? Shall we comapre experience? 

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  • geewhiz
    geewhiz Member Posts: 1,439
    edited October 2012

    I remain interested in virus research. I am a firm believer that the old Coley's Toxins, and the Virginia Livingston Wheeler, and the chloroquinine/malaria research was on to something with creating a cytokine storm for our immune systems to kick into gear to recognize and kill cancer cells in our bodies!

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