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Common
Virus kills Breast Cancer Stem Cells
Newswise — Dalhousie Medical School cancer
researcher Dr. Patrick Lee has proven that a
common virus can infect and kill breast
cancer stem cells.
This breakthrough finding is published in
the current issue of Molecular Therapy, the
prestigious journal of the American Society
of Gene Therapy.
It is only within the past few years that
the scientific community has understood the
full significance of cancer stem cells and
the urgent need to find a means of
eliminating them.
“Cancer stem cells are essentially mother
cells,” explains Dr. Lee, Cameron Chair in
Basic Cancer Research at Dalhousie Medical
School.
“They continuously produce new cancer cells,
aggressively forming tumours even when there
are only a few of them.”
Cancer stem cells are difficult to kill as
they respond poorly to chemotherapy and
radiation.
As Dr. Lee notes, “You can kill all the
regular cancer cells in a tumour, but as
long as there are cancer stem cells present,
disease will recur.”
Dr. Lee is optimistic that his team has
found the key to destroying cancer stem
cells.
The researchers have recently shown that
human reovirus, a common virus that does not
cause disease, effectively targets and kills
cancer stem cells in breast cancer tissue.
“We suspected that reovirus might be
effective against cancer stem cells, because
we have shown time and again how well it
destroys regular cancer cells,” remarks Dr.
Lee, who was the first in the world to
discover that a benign and naturally
occurring virus could selectively infect and
kill cancer cells without harming healthy
cells.
A Calgary-based company, Oncolytics Biotech
Inc., is testing reovirus in clinical trials
to prove the treatments are safe and
effective.
Unlike most cancer studies, which use cancer
cell lines developed for laboratory use,
this study used fresh breast cancer tissue.
This cancer tissue was removed from a
patient of Dr. Carman Giacomantonio, a
Capital Health surgical oncologist who is
working with Dr. Lee on the reovirus
research, along with post-doctoral fellow
Dr. Paola Marcato and research assistant
Cheryl Dean.
In addition to its ability to kill cancer
cells and cancer stem cells, reovirus
stimulates the anti-cancer immune system.
Since virus therapy also invokes an
anti-virus response, Dr. Lee and
post-doctoral fellow Dr. Shashi Gujar are
working on a way to harness the immune
system so it attacks cancer cells while
allowing the virus to freely infect and
destroy cancerous cells.
“Refining this two-pronged approach to
killing cancer is our next step,” says Dr.
Lee.
“We are taking advantage of the natural
characteristics of reovirus and the immune
system itself to create a powerful
virus-based anti-cancer therapy."
Dr. Lee’s discovery that reovirus
effectively targets breast cancer stem cells
has captured the attention of LeadDiscovery,
a UK-based organization dedicated to
promoting drug discovery and development.
LeadDiscovery has identified the finding to
be of particular interest to the drug
development sector and will feature it in
its next update to the global scientific
community and pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Patrick Lee is a founding member of the
Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute,
established on April 2, 2009 to foster a
coordinated cancer research effort in
Atlantic Canada.
The institute was named in honour of the
late Beatrice Hunter, whose $12.5 million
gift to the Dalhousie Medical Research
Foundation transformed cancer research in
the region.
Among its many benefits, this gift funded
the Cameron Chair in Basic Cancer Research.
Dalhousie Medical School recruited Dr. Lee
to Halifax from Calgary to fill this
leadership position in 2003.
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