Genetically modified polio virus can cure brain cancer

Medical Daily News: Polio Virus May Cure Brain Cancer Thanks To Genetic Re-EngineeringPatients with brain cancer, or glioblastoma, compare the disease with a death sentence.

Researchers from Duke University were able to apply another deadly disease against glioblastoma. By removing one of the key genetic sequences from the RNA of the polio virus, they use it to treat the tumor.

Usually cancer cells invent ways to hide from the immune system and not let it destroy itself. The new therapy, as the researchers themselves say, removes the "barrier shield" of the tumor and allows the immune system to see and destroy it.

A genetically modified polio virus, called PVS-RIPO, binds to a receptor that is present on the surface of almost every tumor. PVS-RIPO releases toxins that poison cancer cells, and at the same time does not reproduce in normal cells. Successful clinical trials of the therapy on primates and humans have already been conducted.

Tomograms of the patient's brain 2 and 9 months after treatment
A snapshot from the press release of Targeting Cancer with Genetically Engineered Poliovirus (PVS-RIPO),
published on the website of Duke University Medical Center – VM.

Scientists want to study the effectiveness of PVS-RIPO for other potentially fatal cancers, including breast, prostate, lung, colon and pancreatic cancers.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is in no hurry to approve the treatment because its starting material is a deadly virus. However, back in 2011, the FDA gave permission for experiments involving humans, and now plans to make a decision on approving the drug and assigning the status of "Breakthrough" within a year.

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