I listened to this on the ABC radio this afternoon. It did not mention who the University of Newcastle professor was associated with.-- See transcript. It turns out to be our Viralytics Professor and the inventor of the technology. namely Darren Shafren. Has to be a massive boost for this type of cancer treatment that will involve the likes of Viralytics Limited. Sorry for the length of transcript, but the whole interview / presentation has to be listened to to be appreciated fully.
MARK COLVIN: Medical researchers have shown for the first time that an engineered virus injected into the blood can selectively target cancer cells.
The researchers in the US and Canada say their findings could one day "truly transform" cancer therapies, avoiding the worst side-effects of current treatments.
Ashley Hall reports.
ASHLEY HALL: Using viruses to attack cancer is not a new concept, but in the past they've had to be injected directly into tumours.
And that's had limited effectiveness because it's not always possible to identify each and every one.
But now researchers have engineered a virus they can inject into the blood stream, which apparently finds its way to each and every cancer cell.
CAROLINE BREITBACH: Generally people thought that this would not be possible, given that the body developed mechanisms to defend itself.
ASHLEY HALL: Caroline Breitbach is the director of clinical and translational research with the US biotech company Jennerex, and one of the researchers whose work was published this morning in the journal Nature.
CAROLINE BREITBACH: The virus is infused intravenously and it really seeks out tumour cells and infects the tumour cells as amplified selectively within the tumour, while sparing normal tissue.
ASHLEY HALL: To test their theory, the researchers injected a version of the virus that was used as the basis for the smallpox vaccine into the blood of 23 people with cancers which had spread to multiple organs in the body.
CAROLINE BREITBACH: We have actually genetically engineered it to actually make it less aggressive in normal cells but allow it to continue to be amplified within the tumours.
ASHLEY HALL: Would it be ultimately broadly applicable to all types of cancers?
CAROLINE BREITBACH: Certainly there's promise to treat a broad range of solid tumours.
ASHLEY HALL: Notably, the researchers weren't testing the effectiveness of the therapy in this study, just whether it was safe to give to humans.
Nonetheless, they found in seven out of the eight people given the highest dose, the virus replicated in their tumours but not in healthy tissue.
And overall, Dr Breitbach says there were few side effects.
CAROLINE BREITBACH: We've treated over 100 patients to date and the most common side effects have been transient flu-like symptoms, so especially patients feel like they have a bad flu for about 24 hours and those resolve and patients have not experienced the severe side-effects that are typically associated with chemotherapy and radiation.
ASHLEY HALL: What's the end game for this then? We hear a lot of talk about personalised treatments for cancer, is that what this is headed towards?
CAROLINE BREITBACH: The end game I think is just to use this as a platform technology that allows you to deliver multiple proteins with complimentary mechanisms of action. So it's really thinking about cancer therapy in a very different way. So currently we treat cancer with a product that has one mechanism by which it targets the tumour; so if you use the analogy of a telephone, it's a regular telephone with which you can make a phone call. What we're able to do with our platform now is really kind of design multiple mechanisms to target tumours, kind of like an iPhone with multiple applications.
DARREN SHAFREN: We got used to chemotherapy, radiation therapy but now there's another field which is virotherapy and it's a very exciting area.
ASHLEY HALL: Darren Shafren is a professor of virology at the University of Newcastle.
Along with a corporate partner, he's conducted successful trials in Australia of a similar therapy, using a different virus.
DARREN SHAFREN: It was very nice to see some momentum being gathered and I think it's a great thing for the field considering the fairly bad side-effects from chemotherapy and radiation. Virotherapy in general, whether it's our virus or other viruses has a very good tolerance profile, so I think it's just a very good advertisement for the area.
ASHLEY HALL: Dr Breitbach says the next round of her trials will also include patients in Australia.
She says while they've not yet found a cure for cancer, eradicating it remains the researchers' main focus.
MARK COLVIN: Ashley Hall.
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