Trojan virus helps body hunt disease

29 May 2017 - 08:44 By Sarah Knapton
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Cancer cells.
Cancer cells.
Image: Thinkstock

A designer virus that helps the immune system clear out cancer has been created.

Cancer cells are very good at evading the immune system but the new therapy capitalises on the body's ability to spot a virus quickly.

Swiss scientists inserted cancer proteins into a virus so that when the immune system sees the virus and hunts it down it is primed to hunt cancer cells that carry the same proteins.

The technique could in theory be used to fight any type of cancer. Scientists could simply take proteins from a patient's tumour, place it in the virus and inject it into the body to trigger a strong immune response.

In mice the treatment was shown to bring remission and researchers are keen to move to human trials.

"We hope that our technologies will soon be used in cancer treatments and so increase their success rates," said Daniel Pinschewer, the lead researcher, from the University of Basel.

- ©The Daily Telegraph

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