Cancer Therapy Goes Viral: Progress Is Made Tackling Tumors with Viruses

A new generation of oncolytic viruses are entering late-stage clinical trials, repurposing smallpox and herpesvirus to take on tough tumors.

The adapted virus that immunized hundreds of millions of people against smallpox has now been enlisted in the war on cancer. Vaccinia poxvirus joins a herpesvirus and a host of other pathogens on a growing list of engineered viruses entering late-stage human testing against cancer.

In a two-pronged attack, these viruses specifically target tumor cells while delivering a cargo of immune-boosting genes. In contrast, viruses that cause cancer, such as the human papillomavirus that is responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, disrupt a cell's genome, thereby triggering out-of-control growth.

When the engineered viruses recognize and infect cancer cells, they replicate and sometimes destroy their hosts. Several of the viruses also release the gene for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) an immune system protein. The GM-CSF attracts a swarm of white blood cells and other immune system operatives that mount a further attack on the tumor.

The vaccinia virus has been developed by the biotechnology company Jennerex—named after Edward Jenner, who in the 18th century discovered that a cowpox virus could inoculate against smallpox. It showed effectiveness against liver cancer in a phase II clinical trial and will move into a phase III trial later this year, David Kirn, an oncologist and the company's president and chief executive officer, said at a recent meeting of the American Society for Gene & Cell Therapy in Washington, D.C. In the phase II study, 18 of 24 patients survived at least 12 months; with standard treatment, only about half of patients survive one year. The company also tested the virus in a 23-person, early-stage trial against colorectal, lung, ovarian and skin cancers.

The virus cannot infect noncancerous cells, Kirn explained, because researchers deleted its thymidine kinase gene, which it needs to replicate in the body. However, some 80 percent of solid tumors churn out extra thymidine kinase, which is thought to prevent cancer cell death. The result is a "viral factory" inside cancer cells, Kirn said. "Within 24 hours we see really impressive replication and spread within tumors." Replication of vaccinia is the first step to kil

Finally, a Calgary, Alberta–based company, Oncolytics Biotech, is testing a reovirus (an RNA virus often found in human lungs but thought to be nonpathogenic) against several types of cancer, including that of the lung and skin as well as head and neck malignancies. The company says the reovirus selectively infects cancer cells over healthy ones because once a cell turns malignant it stops making an antiviral factor called protein kinase R. The reovirus takes advantage of this deficit to replicate inside cancer cells.

Researchers have been experimenting with oncolytic viruses for decades, but early attempts were quite cautious and the early viruses showed limited effectiveness, says Michael Lairmore, associate director of basic sciences at The Ohio State University ComprehensiveCancer Center. The targeted viruses "have the potential to add a new tool to our arsenal," he says, because they home in on cancer cells more aggressively.

Both Lairmore and Gerritsen cautioned, however, that oncolytic viruses will still need to be paired with chemo or radiation therapies to achieve the best results. "The response rates we're seeing [in early human trials] are very similar to what we see with all new cancer drugs," Gerritsen says. Of patients who have received only the virus, without other treatment, "about 5 to 10 percent of patients respond really well," he added. "So it's only when we combine oncolytic viruses with standard treatment that we can expect to see some very good effects."

Avoid Noisy Communications.. Silent Sound Technology as an solution.

You are in a movie theater or noisy restaurant or a bus etc where there is lot of noise around is big issue while talking on a mobile phone. But in the future this problem is eliminated with ”silent sounds”, a new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair that transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.
The device, developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), uses electromyography, monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech, without a sound uttered.
‘Silent Sound’ technology aims to notice every movement of the lips and transform them into sounds, which could help people who lose voices to speak, and allow people to make silent calls without bothering others. Rather than making any sounds, your handset would decipher the movements your mouth makes by measuring muscle activity, then convert this into speech that the person on the other end of the call can hear. So, basically, it reads your lips.
“We currently use electrodes which are glued to the skin. In the future, such electrodes might for example by incorporate into cell phones,” said Michael Wand, from the KIT.
The technology opens up a host of applications, from helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident to telling a trusted friend your PIN number over the phone without anyone eavesdropping — assuming no lip-readers are around.
The technology can also turn you into an instant polyglot. Because the electrical pulses are universal, they can be immediately transformed into the language of the user’s choice.
“Native speakers can silently utter a sentence in their language, and the receivers hear the translated sentence in their language. It appears as if the native speaker produced speech in a foreign language,” said Wand.
The translation technology works for languages like English, French and German, but for languages like Chinese, where different tones can hold many different meanings, poses a problem, he added.
Noisy people in your office? Not any more. “We are also working on technology to be used in an office environment,” the KIT scientist told AFP.
The engineers have got the device working to 99 percent efficiency, so the mechanical voice at the other end of the phone gets one word in 100 wrong, explained Wand.
“But we’re working to overcome the remaining technical difficulties. In five, maybe ten years, this will be useable, everyday technology,” he said.