American biologists have successfully completed a series of clinical trials on the use of the herpes virus to destroy cancerous tumors in the brain: the experiments proved that such therapy is safe for humans, according to an article published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

“The HSV1716 virus we tested is very similar in structure to T-Vec, an already approved viral drug for the treatment of skin cancer.. Oncolytic viruses have great therapeutic potential while causing minimal toxic effects by targeting only tumor cells,” said Timothy Cripe of The Ohio State University in Columbus..

Today, one of the most promising methods of fighting cancer are special genetically modified viruses that can enter cancer cells and weaken them, attracting the attention of the immune system, or even causing them to self-destruct.. These viruses have a number of unique advantages - they can be injected into inoperable tumors, and they do not touch healthy cells, since they are not able to divide inside them..

Creip says the creation of the T-Vec and its early trials showed that in some cases, these viruses can hide inside healthy neurons and cause fatigue, inflammation and other negative effects.. All this cast doubt on the possibility of using virus therapy to treat the most intractable tumors - gliomas and other malignant tumors in the brain..

To solve this problem, scientists in collaboration with AmGen Corporation (developer of T-Vec) created a new type of herpes virus, in the DNA of which not only the genes responsible for reproduction in healthy cells and the “invisibility” of the virus for the immune system were deleted, but also areas.

The virus, called HSV1716, was tested by Crape's team on nine volunteers: three children and six young people aged 8 to 30 who suffered from advanced brain, bone, muscle, and kidney cancers..

As the experiment showed, the virus successfully penetrated cancer cells in six out of nine cases and did not cause chronic infections and other negative consequences associated with its reproduction outside the tumor..

According to scientists, in no case was tumor growth recorded, and in one patient they revealed massive death of cancer cells, which biologists considered a good sign for continuing experiments with HSV1716 in a clinical setting..

aspect. net.

e-news. com. ua.