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Cure for Cancer?

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Durandal7

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Feb 24, 2001
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Oncolytics Biotech has found that a naturally occuring reovirus has enormous potential for treating cancer. This reovirus has been found to attack cancer cells while ignoring healthy cells. It is a naturally occuring virus and is non-pathogenic. It has been found to attack about 2/3 of human cancers including breast, prostate and brain cancer. There are a number of independent studies documenting reovirus therapy .

According to their site this is how the virus operates:
Scientific studies have demonstrated that approximately two-thirds of all human cancer cells have an activated Ras pathway, one of the most common set of mutations leading to cancer. An activated Ras pathway leads to a constant barrage of growth signals to the cell, causing uncontrolled growth. In cells with an activated Ras pathway, the anti-viral response appears to be turned off. When reovirus infects one of these cancer cells, it is able to replicate and eventually kill the cancer cell. Up to 5,000 progeny virus organisms can then infect and kill surrounding cancer cells. Theoretically, the cycle of infection, replication and cell death will continue until there are no longer any cancer cells accessible.
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Additionally, the research has shown enough promise to warrant a grant from the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

CALGARY, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Oncolytics Biotech Inc. ("Oncolytics") (TSX:ONC, NASDAQ:ONCY) announced today that support for multiple clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of REOLYSIN® in a range of cancers has been approved by the Drug Development Group of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, U.S. National Cancer Institute ("NCI").
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http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031029/to193_1.html
 
Awesome. I think practically everyone knows somebody (family member, friend, classmate, office buddy) that has been affected by this horrible disease. This is a plague that must be stopped, and news like this should give us renewed hope that we will find a cure. It's only a matter of time. Best of luck to all those involved in the research.
 
A couple years back there was a similar story. A group made a version of the common cold virus (adenovirus) that only attacked cells that had an altered "cell suicide" pathway. Most cancers turn off this pathway as a first step to uncontrolled growth. The virus wiped out tumors in mice. A company formed based on the results called Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and it is doing OK stock-wise but hasn't turned that finding into a cancer treatment yet. Maybe both together? I think any "cure" will be a cocktail, like how the HIV inhibitors are done.
 
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Originally posted by Dros
A couple years back there was a similar story. A group made a version of the common cold virus (adenovirus) that only attacked cells that had an altered "cell suicide" pathway. Most cancers turn off this pathway as a first step to uncontrolled growth. The virus wiped out tumors in mice.
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However, we are not talking about mice. We are looking at documented results on living cancer cells inside a human being.

These are before and after shots of an inoperable neck tumor that was injected with the reovirus: Before and after. Additionally there are documented human clinical trials that indicate an effect on malignant tumors.
 
Originally posted by Durandal7
However, we are not talking about mice. We are looking at documented results on living cancer cells inside a human being.
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The first results from Onyx were in mice (in 1996). They have since then released info on promising sounding clinical trials with significant effects on tumor size in humans as well. Maybe this virus is better, but to me they sound similar, and the Onyx one, while promising, doesn't sound like a magic bullet. Of course the new one sounds great -- it is the company web site!
 
I hope to God they can come up with something.

My father currently has Kidney Cancer, for a second time, and is taking interpheron alpha. So far no positive results. My grandmother has breast cancer, but it's too late for her, it's spread too much.

I just hope this leads to some serious treatments.
 
retrovirus therapy has a wide variety of potential applications, but since we're kind of "making a deal with the devil" when we engineer one (which obviously did not happen in this case), we can't always predict it. so i don't know that much money will be invested in it's research... what if the retrovirus mutated because of some chemo drug and then went contageous? you get my point.

but clearly this is an area that needs more attention. AIDS and cancer are the two biggest things we should be funding, they're so devistating worldwide... animals have a tremendously difficult time with cancer as well, some animals are very much prone to it... we keep african pygmie hedgehogs, which some studies show have as much as 40% cancer rate. humans are not the only ones waiting for a cure.

and before anyone starts with me being insensitive for wanting a cure for my pets' cancer, my great-grandmother and mother-in-law are both breast cancer survivors, and i have lost many friends and acquaintances to cancer :(

pnw
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel
retrovirus therapy has a wide variety of potential applications, but since we're kind of "making a deal with the devil" when we engineer one (which obviously did not happen in this case), we can't always predict it. so i don't know that much money will be invested in it's research... what if the retrovirus mutated because of some chemo drug and then went contageous? you get my point.
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Retroviruses are already mutating at a crazy rate. That's why they are tricky to make vaccines against... the target is always shifting.

Although, it is hard to predict what the possible bad outcomes may be, as you say.
 
I do not know anyone who has cancer. Yet I hope that a cure will be found. For all I know, someone I know might get cancer. But with all thse false alarms in the past I find it unlikely that we will find a cure very soon.
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel
retrovirus therapy has a wide variety of potential applications, but since we're kind of "making a deal with the devil" when we engineer one (which obviously did not happen in this case), we can't always predict it. so i don't know that much money will be invested in it's research... what if the retrovirus mutated because of some chemo drug and then went contageous? you get my point.

but clearly this is an area that needs more attention. AIDS and cancer are the two biggest things we should be funding, they're so devistating worldwide... animals have a tremendously difficult time with cancer as well, some animals are very much prone to it... we keep african pygmie hedgehogs, which some studies show have as much as 40% cancer rate. humans are not the only ones waiting for a cure.

and before anyone starts with me being insensitive for wanting a cure for my pets' cancer, my great-grandmother and mother-in-law are both breast cancer survivors, and i have lost many friends and acquaintances to cancer :(

pnw
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In this case, they aren't using a retrovirus, its a reovirus. I'm no doctor, but there appears to be a big difference: http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com/faq.html Not saying the point isn't still valid, but we should be talking about the correct terms. This reovirus stuff seems to me to be much less of a problem than using a regular virus since it appears to be much more benign and there appears to be litte if any engineering here. They simply found a naturally occuring virus that doesn't cause disease that we all have been exposed to and found it can kill cancer cells.
 
i just wanna say i find that hard to believe that u dont know anyone who had or has or passed away because of cancer. but i guess thats great news that u never had to put up wit it
 
Originally posted by strider42
In this case, they aren't using a retrovirus, its a reovirus. I'm no doctor, but there appears to be a big difference: http://www.oncolyticsbiotech.com/faq.html Not saying the point isn't still valid, but we should be talking about the correct terms. This reovirus stuff seems to me to be much less of a problem than using a regular virus since it appears to be much more benign and there appears to be litte if any engineering here. They simply found a naturally occuring virus that doesn't cause disease that we all have been exposed to and found it can kill cancer cells.
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I don't think there is a big difference. Retroviruses have a genome out of RNA. To replicate it they use RNA reverse transcriptase, which tends to make errors. Reoviruses also have an RNA genome as well, so they also mutate rapidly.

You are right that it seems benign. But there are many benign viruses out there, and making a pathogenic one benign is pretty easy (vaccines used to be benign versions of disease-causing ones, and this can be done without any genetic engineering). So the whole "natural" aspect of it seems to me to be more useful for their advertising department than for any scientific bonus.
 
Originally posted by Dros
I don't think there is a big difference. Retroviruses have a genome out of RNA. To replicate it they use RNA reverse transcriptase, which tends to make errors. Reoviruses also have an RNA genome as well, so they also mutate rapidly.

You are right that it seems benign. But there are many benign viruses out there, and making a pathogenic one benign is pretty easy (vaccines used to be benign versions of disease-causing ones, and this can be done without any genetic engineering). So the whole "natural" aspect of it seems to me to be more useful for their advertising department than for any scientific bonus.
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Like I said, I'm no doctor. I just wanted to point out that they weren't using a virus that currently causes any disease, such as what I've heard in other similar types of research. I think its a big thing when its a naturally occuring benign virus, as opposed to a genetically or otherwise modified disease causing virus that it seems would be much more likely to turn into a problem through either unforseen effects or mutations. There may also be some really key differences between them (assuming there are since they have different designations). But I don't know. Just adding some clarification.
 
This sounds like great news. It will be important to see the results of larger clinical trials. They will also need to see what the long term results will show.
 
Originally posted by wdlove
This sounds like great news. It will be important to see the results of larger clinical trials. They will also need to see what the long term results will show.
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Yeah. It seems like there are a hundred examples of treatments that looked great in early clinical trials and then showed little in a larger trial.

Probably, 10,000 therapies go through Phase III trials. Most of them show nothing. In a hundred, 2 or 3 out of the 5 tested get somewhat better. This of course, excites everyone, even though if 5% of the patients recover by chance, then in quite a few groups of 5 you'll see 3 people cured. But the group or company touts it as the next "silver bullet" anyway. And they have pictures of the miraculous cures that they saw.

But then, because it was all due to chance in the early trials, it fails in the larger.

Maybe this one will be different. Though these promising treatments have been popping up since interferon in the 70s.
 
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