An Australian company called Imugene has created a virus that can eliminate all types of cancer. So far it has been tested on Petrie plates and mice, where it worked by reducing tumors and killing diseased cells. Human tests should start soon.
Although it seems strange that a virus is used to treat a disease, this is possible and scientists have been doing it for years. A modified herpes virus has been implemented to treat some types of skin cancer.
Now, scientists are using cowpox virus as the basis for their cancer treatment, called CF33. The first tests on mice have reduced tumor cells, so Imugene believes that the next logical step is to perform experiments on humans, in order to verify the effectiveness of the treatment.
During the next tests, which will take place next year in Australia and other countries, the treatment will be implemented in some types of specific cancers, such as triple negative breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, bladder cancer, gastric cancer and intestinal.
Professor Yuman Fong, a cancer treatment specialist, told the Daily Telegraph that there is evidence that some viruses could fight cancer since the early 1900s when people were vaccinated against rabies and their cancer disappeared. entered the reference phase.
However, it was feared that just as the virus was toxic to cancer, it was also to humans, but now things are different and could be the best way to attack cancerous tumors.
In Imugene experiments, patients will observe that the virus will be injected directly into their tumors, where it will multiply to the point of destroying it. The immune system itself should therefore be alerted to other cancer cells in the body, attacking and eliminating them.
This is very promising, but it will take years before the health strategy is used in hospitals, because it remains to be seen how the immune system reacts to the virus itself. Furthermore, cancer cells mutate to survive, and this is how they have become resistant to treatments such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
source: Daily Telegraph
