Researchers from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) have developed virus-derived particles that can kill cancer cells.
Drs. David Conrad and John Bell of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) have been trying to develop particles derived from viruses for treatment for some time now and the latest development has been their first breakthrough. The researchers successfully developed virus-derived particles that can be used to treat leukemia (blood cancer).
"Our research indicated that a replicating virus might not be the safest or most effective approach for treating leukemia, so we decided to investigate whether we could make virus-derived particles that no longer replicate but still kill cancer," said Dr. Conrad in a press statement. "We were delighted to see that this novel therapy was very safe at high doses, and worked extremely well in our laboratory leukemia models. We hope to test this in patients in the near future."
The new particles were developed by using an extra dose of UV light and a specific method that transformed regular replicating viruses into particles that were not capable of replicating or spreading. Instead, these particles killed many forms of leukemia cells that they were tested in the laboratory. The creation of these new particles didn't alter or affect the normal blood cells. A treatment using the newly developed particles was successfully tried on mice that had cancer. Eighty per cent of the mice that received the therapy had markedly prolonged survival and 60 per cent were eventually cured, while all of the untreated mice died of their leukemia within 20 days.
"Leukemia is a devastating disease that can be very difficult to treat, and new therapies are urgently needed," said Dr. Conrad. "While we're still at the early stages of this research, I think this therapy holds a lot of promise because it appears to have a potent, long-lasting effect on leukemia without the debilitating side effects of many cancer therapies used in the clinic right now. We will likely see even better results once we optimize the dose in our preparations to advance this research into human clinical trials."
