The virus that kills cancer is in the news again. Recent research at Penn State is being reported that indicates some interesting new findings. I have not read any of the original work in this and won’t likely have time to, but there is a press release:
HERSHEY, Pa. — A nondisease-causing virus kills human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, creating opportunities for potential new cancer therapies, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers who tested the virus on three different breast cancer types that represent the multiple stages of breast cancer development.
Adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) is a virus that regularly infects humans but causes no disease. Past studies by the same researchers show that it promotes tumor cell death in cervical cancer cells infected with human papillomavirus. Researchers used an unaltered, naturally occurring version of AAV2 on human breast cancer cells.
“Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the world and is the leading cause of cancer-related death in women,” said Samina Alam, research associate in microbiology and immunology. “It is also complex to treat.”
Craig Meyers, professor of microbiology and immunology, said breast cancer is problematic to treat because of its multiple stages. “Because it has multiple stages, you can’t treat all the women the same. Currently, treatment of breast cancer is dependent on multiple factors such as hormone-dependency, invasiveness and metastases, drug resistance and potential toxicities. Our study shows that AAV2, as a single entity, targets all different grades of breast cancer.”
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This is a really interesting blog. It’s amazing to see how something so small can lead us one step close to a cure for breast cancer. In addition, I believe that the medical field is making a big advancement towards finding cures for other types of cancer too, and itâ??s little things like this virus that bring us closer every day. One question that I have is, has this virus been tested on other types of cancer, or just breast cancer? Overall this is a really interesting article and I am curious to see where this research goes.
Since they have been studying the AAV2 since the 1960â??s, have performed clinical trials with positive results on illnesses such as Cystic Fibrosis, Parkinsonâ??s, Alzheimerâ??s. liver, prostrate and breast cancerâ?¦I am wondering why this is â??newsâ? and why itâ??s taking them so long to get this out to the populous. Another case for money over healing. Anyone doing an internet search on this and reading the information with footnotes will see this has been studied for quite some time.
Just one example from this site: http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/73/10/8549?view=long&pmid=10482608
Blacklow, N. R., M. D. Hoggan, A. Z. Kapikian, J. B. Austin, and W. P. Rowe. 1968. Epidemiology of adenovirus-associated virus infection in a nursery population. Am. J. Epidemiol. 88:368-378[Abstract/Free Full Text].