First Patient Dosed With Experimental Cancer-Killing Virus in New Trial

The first patient in a small clinical trial of an experimental cancer treatment was dosed this week. The treatment uses a virus to kill cancer cells while also increasing the body's immune response to the cancer. The hope is that this therapy can help those with advanced solid tumors.

The City of Hope National Medical Center in California created the Vaxinia virus. It is being developed with the company Imugene.

Vaxinia is an oncolytic virus, meaning it prefers to target tumors. Scientists have been trying to use these kinds of viruses to kill off cancer cells for more than a century, but have been unsuccessful so far. Some teams have decided to explore a slightly different plan of attack. This genetically modified virus can cause harm to cancer cells and make them more recognizable to the immune system.

The researchers hope that this strategy will allow other treatments that boost our immune response to be more effective against tumors. These treatments are called immunotherapy. In early animal and lab experiments, the virus has been shown to reduce the size of colon, lung, breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancer tumors.

The lead study investigator, Daneng Li, an assistant professor of City, said that the power of immunotherapy has the potential to improve outcomes for patients in their battle with cancer.

Next-Level Sound can be experienced.

Theater-like sound surrounds you with spatial audio with dynamic head tracking.