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Flu virus could be used to
treat pancreatic cancer
Modified
strain of the common disease can be injected into the bloodstream without
posing a risk to healthy cells, say scientists. A modified form of the common
flu virus has been reprogrammed to hunt down and attack pancreatic cancer
tumours, but leave healthy cells unharmed.
Scientists
were also able to show that the virus could be injected into the bloodstream to
kill cancer cells, which may have spread to other parts of the body in more
advanced forms of the disease.
“The
new virus specifically infects and kills pancreatic cancer cells, causing few
side effects in nearby healthy tissue,” said lead author, Dr Stella Man, from
Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University London (QMUL),
who described it as “selective and effective”.
The
team say that the advance could become a promising treatment for one of the
most aggressive forms of cancer.
Around
9,800 patients are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year, and
just 5 per cent of patients will still be alive five years later – the lowest
survival rate of any cancer.
Dr Man
added: “If we manage to confirm these results in human clinical trials, then
this may become a promising new treatment for pancreatic cancer patients, and
could be combined with existing chemotherapy drugs to kill persevering cancer
cells.”
Independent
experts warned that the findings, which only looked at mice, would need to be
replicated in humans but said it was exciting to see viruses could be
reprogrammed to selectively kill tumour cells in this way.
Pancreatic
cancers tend to be buried within a hard-to-penetrate “stroma” layer,
resembling tough scar tissue.
This
makes delivery of treatments more difficult, but this paper suggested there was
some ability for the virus to infect and infiltrate the stroma and reach the
major tumour cells.
“Viruses
are nature’s nanotechnology,” according to Professor Gerard Evan, lead
pancreatic cancer researcher at Cancer Research UK, who was not involved in
this study. He said harnessing viruses to target key cells is now
an “exciting avenue” for research.
In 2015, researchers at Royal Marsden Hospitals provided
“world first” confirmation that a modified form of the cold sore-causing herpes
virus could improve survival of patients with skin cancers.
A study earlier this month showed viruses can be tailored
to attack brain tumours, which are hard to reach with other treatments
and drugs.
The latest study, published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics,explored whether viruses
could be similarly effective in hard-to-treat pancreatic tumours.
The
team used mice that had human pancreatic cells grafted onto them and a version
of the influenza virus that had been tweaked to react to one of the unique
markers of pancreatic cancer.
These
cancer cells have a molecule, alpha v beta 6, that is not found in healthy
human cells, and the virus was modified to have a receptor-protein molecule on
its outer cell that lets it detect and bind to these cells.
Once a
virus binds to a cell it injects its genetic material into it and replicates,
forming lots of new virus copies which replicate and burst out to infect more
cells – in this case the remaining tumour cells.
The
researchers say their new technique has produced the most selective viral
cancer therapy seen to date, which allows it to be safely injected to spread
around the body.
Maggie
Blanks, CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, which partly funded this
research, said it was exciting to see the work coming to fruition “with such
positive results”.
She
said: “Developing more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer becomes more
urgent every year as the incidence of the disease increases, and we hope to see
this research progressed further."
The
team are currently seeking funding to move to clinical trials in humans in the
next two years.
Prof
Evan said: “It’s encouraging to see that this virus, which has been modified to
recognise cancerous markers, has the ability to infect and kill pancreatic
cancer cells in the lab.
“But we
need further trials in patients to see if the virus can safely penetrate
pancreatic tumours, which have a poor blood supply and are protected by a web
of tangled connective tissue.
“Pancreatic
cancer is incredibly difficult to treat and we urgently need new therapies to
tackle the disease. This is a courageous approach and we look forward to seeing
further results.”
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