Tina[a]
17.11.2005
Virus kills tumours in mice
By NADIA MOHARIB, CALGARY SUN
Dr. Peter Forsyth of Calgary was one of many Canadian scientists who have shown cancer-fighting properties of a virus used in experiments on mice. (Carlos Amat, SUN) . A cross-Canada scientific collaboration has shown a potent new cancer-fighting virus destroys malignant brain tumours in mice.
And the discovery offers hope the myxoma virus will one day be an anti-cancer weapon able to go from mice to humans, says Dr. Peter Forsyth, one of the researchers behind it and director of the Clark H. Smith Integrative Brain Tumour Research Centre.
"We have to do a lot more work before it can be put into people but the approach of using a virus is extremely promising," he said from his Calgary office yesterday. "But it is easy to cure cancer in test tubes, a little harder in mice and very difficult in humans."
The virus cured mice of brain tumours by giving cancer cells a fatal infection while doing nothing to harm healthy tissue.
Forsyth and fellow scientists said of 13 mice with brain tumours injected with the virus, 92% were alive and apparently cured.
Should the virus prove deadly to brain tumours in humans it could likely work to combat a wide range of cancers, he said.
It will be years, however, before scientists are ready to apply what they´ve learned in the lab to clinical trials.