Rabbit killing virus eradicates human brain tumor cells
Published: November 17, 2005
Scientists in London and Calgary have used a rabbit virus to eliminate human brain tumors in mice for the first time, raising the possibility a cure can be developed for the deadly disease.
“We’re extremely encouraged by the results,” said Dr. Grant McFadden, a scientist at the Robarts Research Institute in London.
If everything goes perfectly in subsequent tests, trials on people could start in three to four years, he said.
McFadden teamed with Dr. Peter Forsyth of the University of Calgary to inject myxoma, a virus used years ago to kill rabbits in Australia, into mice with human gliomas, a brain tumor that hits 2,500 Canadians a year. [100 Q&A About Brain Tumors]
“It is a living, growing virus that actually grows and kills the cancer cells,” McFadden said of the myxoma virus.
The researchers found that 92 per cent of the mice treated were alive and apparently cured of the cancer when the experiment was completed after more than 130 days.
“I am really thrilled by it. At this point it has worked as well as we could have ever hoped,” McFadden said.
“In most of the mice the cancer cells are gone by the time we look at them after several weeks,” he said.
Testing also indicated the rabbit virus only attacked the cancer cells, leaving healthy cells alone.
“We infected and killed the tumors and all the normal cells were perfectly fine, no problem at all,” Forsyth said from Calgary.
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