Can viruses be used to treat cancer?

Can viruses be used to treat cancer?

There is currently one oncolytic virus therapy approved by the FDA for the treatment of cancer: T-VEC (Imlygic®): a modified herpes simplex virus (HSV) that infects tumor cells and promotes their destruction; approved for subsets of patients with melanoma.

Do oncolytic viruses work?

Oncolytic viruses have long been viewed as tools for directly killing cancer cells. But a growing body of research suggests that some oncolytic viruses may work—at least in part—by triggering an immune response in the body against the cancer.

Can oncolytic virus cause cancer?

Despite the promises of early in vivo lab work, these viruses do not specifically infect cancer cells, but they still kill cancer cells preferentially.

How do oncolytic viruses target cancer cells?

Oncolytic viruses can be specifically targeted to tumors by modifying the viral coat proteins so that adaptive and innate immune responses can be activated. Virus infections initiate an inflammatory response in these tumor cells and help reduce anti-tumor immunity.

Is oncolytic virus gene therapy?

The use of replication-competent oncolytic viruses has largely advanced cancer gene therapy. Oncolytic virus not only possesses unique mechanisms of action that are distinct from other treatment modalities, its self-perpetuating nature provides an ideal platform for therapeutic transgene insertion.

What are the attributes of all oncolytic viruses?

Oncolytic viruses (OVs) selectively replicate in and kill cancer cells, and spread within the tumor, while not harming normal tissue. In addition to this direct oncolytic activity, OVs are also very effective at inducing immune responses to themselves and to the infected tumor cells.

Which cells help destroy viral and cancer infections?

CD8+ killer T cells destroy thousands of virus-infected cells in the body every day. These cells can also directly target and destroy cancer cells.

What are oncolytic products?

Products. Luciferase, iRFP, eGFP, NIS Cell Lines. Herpes Simplex Virus. Measles Virus. Vaccinia Virus.

What is an oncolytic vaccine?

Oncolytic viruses are ideal platforms for tumor vaccination because they can mediate the direct in situ killing of tumor cells that release a broad array of tumor antigens and alarmins or danger signals thereby cross-priming antitumor cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), which mediate the indirect killing of uninfected …

Is CAR-T cell therapy alone enough to cure cancer?

Rapid advances in synthetic biology, T cell immunology, and gene editing have fueled the design of next generation CAR-T cells with the potential to overcome some of the hurdles encounter in solid tumors ( 20 ). However, it is unlikely that CAR-T cell therapy alone will be sufficient to induce complete responses in the majority of cancers.

Can CAR T-cell therapy help multiple myeloma patients?

Antigen targets for CAR T-cell therapy have been identified in other blood cancers as well, including multiple myeloma. Dr. Kochenderfer and his colleagues at NCI, as part of the collaboration with Kite, have developed CAR T cells that target the BCMA protein, which is found on nearly all myeloma cells.

What is oncolytic virotherapy and how does it work?

Oncolytic virotherapy is a therapeutic approach to treat cancer that uses native or genetically modified viruses that selectively replicate within cancer cells ( 21 ).

How does T-Vec work to fight cancer?

“The oncolytic virus kills tumor cells and causes the release of danger signals, which help to generate an immune response,” explained Dr. Kaufman, who co-led the clinical trial that led to the approval of T-VEC.