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Poliovirus, Common Cold to Fight Brain Cancer

A new report spotlights a daring experiment to combat brain tumors. Researchers from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center have merged the cancer-killing properties of poliovirus with a genetic element from the common cold to produce a anti-cancer agent that rapidly killed cancer cells in laboratory cultures and in animals.

The key to success was disabling the poliovirus' ability to kill brain cells while retaining its ability to kill cancer cells in the brain. To do this, the team swapped a critical genetic element from the common cold "rhinovirus" - which doesn't affect the human brain - with the corresponding genetic element from the poliovirus.

"We made a drug out of a virus by engineering its destructive abilities from a foe into a friend," said Matthias Gromeier, M.D., who led the team. "The rhinovirus acts as the trigger that activates gene expression, but the genes being expressed - the silver bullets in the gun, so to speak - are all from the poliovirus [which] kills the cancer cells quickly and efficiently."

Tests in mice and primates confirm that the modified poliovirus kills brain tumor cells but doesn't affect normal motor neurons. The therapy is promising because it doesn't carry the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, and can be introduced directly into the tumor.

Testing of the new viral agent in humans should begin within two years.