By Bob Larson
Recently, 60 Minutes Sunday TV program reported that Duke University may have found a miracle cure for brain cancer using a genetically modified polio virus. The Duke research team injected a genetically engineered polio virus into deadly brain tumors involving primates and human patients. The result of the virus homed in on cancer cells and destroys them without harming healthy tissues.
Dr. Matthias Gromeier, a professor of neurosurgery, molecular genetics, and microbiology at Duke, has been working on the polio-virus project for 25 years. Dr. Gromeier and his team disabled the virus through genetic manipulation, so it cannot cause polio. The treatment targets a particularly aggressive cancer, glioblastoma, killing about 12,000 Americans every year.
The modified virus kills brain tumor cells directly, but also enhances the patients’ own immune response against the cancer. The research is still in early stages undergoing “phase one” clinical trials in cancer patients with glioblastoma.
Since 2012, 22 patients have been treated of which half are still alive using smaller balanced doses of the virus. Two patients are cancer-free three years after receiving the modified polio virus without causing any polio side effects.
Duke University is planning additional Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved studies with larger groups of cancer patients including adults and children. If these trials prove as promising, the new method could lead to wider use of cancer-fighting viral agents in brain, pancreas, prostate, lung, colon, and other major cancers. If the follow-up studies prove successful, the FDA could give fast track approval within several years for the brain cancer treatment.
This is just another beneficial use of the latest technologies in fighting killer diseases.
~ Bob Larson is a technologist, photo journalist, and Marketing Director for 50Plus.