
Cancer-fighting viruses win approval - pravka
http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-fighting-viruses-win-approval-1.18651?WT.mc_id=SFB_NNEWS_1508_RHBox
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cryoshon
Definitely a really cool project! I have had the privilege to collaborate with
an immuno-oncology group at Dana Farber a few years back, and they're
perpetually on the top of their game, and at the edge of human knowledge.
Based off of this article, there is a lot more work to be done, though:

"But statistics — not anecdotes — rule over drug approvals. In 2005,
regulators in China approved an oncolytic adenovirus called H101 to treat
head-and-neck cancer, after evidence showed that the treatment could shrink
tumours. Those trials stopped short of assessing improvements in patient
survival — a measure often required for FDA approval. Since then, a medical-
tourism industry has built up in China for people who cannot get the therapy
in their home countries.

Then, in May this year, a team supported by biotechnology giant Amgen of
Thousand Oaks, California, published promising results from a large clinical
trial of T-VEC (R. H. Andtbacka et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 33, 2780–2788; 2015).
The virus both shrank tumours in people with advanced melanoma and extended
patient survival by a median of 4.4 months. Yet statistically, survival
benefits fell just a hair’s breadth of significance. “That raised the
question, ‘Well, what is statistical significance? Is this an active agent or
not?’” Russell says."

It's possible that a more immunogenic (eliciting immune response) virus would
have better results against cancers. Of course, this means that it would also
hurt the patient more. I'm sure they know this already.

Though I'm biased, I think that given the current state of viral engineering,
immunotherapy (immune cell gene-engineering and transplantation)is a better
way of getting at cancer for now-- it's rapidly being proven in the clinic and
the lab. I can see a time 10 years from now where we'll be able to engineer
certain viruses to be powerfully oncolytic, but for now I think the problems
are specificity of targeting (you only want to kill tumor cells) and the
inability for prototype oncolytic viruses to infiltrate the tumor
microenvironment. The infiltration problem isn't a hard dead end, nor is it a
problem unique to viral therapies, but a couple of the bleeding edge
immunotherapies and even older radiotherapies and chemotherapies can pierce
into the tumor microenvironment with no problem.

Though I expect immunotherapy to beat them to the punch, I can completely see
oncolytic viruses joining the combination regimen that is the standard of
care, alongside surgery, chemo and radiotherapy, provided that they show a
more concrete improvement in survival rate/length.

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mindcrime
_Oncolytics Biotech is studying a virus that hitch-hikes through the body on
certain blood cells, camouflaged from the immune system._

Is it just me, or does this sound kinda dangerous? That is, engineering a
virus specifically to evade the immune system. As long as it stays un-mutated,
fine. But what if a mutation occurs that results in it becoming a deadly
disease, with the bonus of being "camouflaged from the immune system"?

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ars
> But what if a mutation occurs that results in it becoming a deadly disease

It seems dangerous to me as well, but I should point out that viruses don't
typically do that - they are either dangerous or not. They might change how
infectious, or which species they target, but it rare to go from harmless to
dangerous.

It's also not in their interest to be dangerous, it's better for them to
simply be infectious without causing serious illness.

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abandonliberty
You're right, Some of the most evolutionary fit viruses are the HERVs.[1]

Unfortunately viruses (and genes for that matter) don't mutate intentionally
for their best interests.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus)

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jjbiotech
How can they prevent this virus from evolving to replicate in non-cancerous
cells? I wonder if that's why they started with a benign virus like herpes.

Very cool, but slightly scarey at the same time.

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zmanian
I think it is simultaneously amazing and scary that the FDA is starting to
approve self replicating organisms in therapies. Bacteriophages are a
promising replacement for antibiotics. I wonder if they can follow a similar
regulatory path.

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QuercusMax
Live-virus vaccines are already a thing; in some sense this is just a new
application of them as far as the FDA is concerned.

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Edmond
penny stock, is this a buying opportunity? I have previously had painful
misses on early stuff like this.

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bitwize
Fuck yeah, medical science. If ever a fight were worth cheering for, it's the
fight against disease.

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known
Prevention is BETTER than cure; Editing DNA can PREVENT Cancer; But Govt is
NOT approving it;

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suprgeek
Very good!

Kill the big dog by infecting the body with a smaller disease that is lethal
to the big dog but (slightly) less lethal to the host.

So this can either go the "World war Z" way or the "I am legend" way - that's
a cheery thought

