After 30 years of work, Saint Louis University researchers have genetically engineered a common cold virus to fight cancerous cells while leaving unaffected healthy ones. They received a patent for this research and clinical tests on humans will start soon, according to this news release.
Dr. William Wold, chair of the department of molecular microbiology and immunology, and his colleagues Karoly Toth, Konstantin Doronin, Ann E. Tollefson, and Mohan Kuppuswamy have found a way to convert the relatively benign "adenovirus" that causes the common cold into an anti-cancer drug that attacks and destroys cancerous cells.
"Human cancer is currently treated with surgery, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy, depending on the cancer type," Wold said. "These treatments can be highly successful, but new therapies are required, especially for tumors that have become resistant to chemo- or radiation-therapy."
Wold and his colleagues have done this by modifying one gene so that the virus can grow in cancer cells but NOT normal cells and by boosting the activity of another gene that the virus normally uses to disrupt the cells it has infected. "When the virus infects cells, it takes the altered genes with it, and those genes attack cancer cells while leaving normal cells intact," Wold explained.
You'll find more information about adenovirus cancer gene therapy vectors on William Wold's group homepage.
Dr. Wold received a patent this fall for this work. You can find technical -- and medical -- details on this patent by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office and search for patent number 6,627,190.
The title is "Recombinant adenovirus vectors that are replication-competent in tert-expressing cells." Here is the abstract.
Novel adenovirus vectors which overexpress an adenovirus death protein and which are replication-competent in and, preferably, replication-restricted to cells expressing telomerase. One embodiment provides for efficient destruction and removal of viral-infected host cells expressing telomerase. Still further, another embodiment provides for additional restriction and safety by disrupting E1A's ability to bind p300 and/or members of the Rb family members. Compositions of the novel vectors and methods for promoting death of cells expressing telomerase with these vectors are also disclosed.
Preclinical testing has already been done so clinical trials should start soon.
Now this patented technology has been issued and exclusively licensed to a company, Introgen Therapeutics, which made the announcement this morning. Introgen and VirRx, a biotechnology company founded by Wold and with a primary interest in cancer gene therapy, are collaborating on new therapies for cancer and other diseases.
We can only hope that clinical trials will be successful.
Sources: Saint Louis University news release, via EurekAlert!, December 16, 2003; and various websites
1:18:59 PM
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