Fighting cancer with genetically-modified HIV!

EllisDTripp · Feb 14, 2005

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66579,00.html

Altered HIV Attacks Mice Tumors By Kristen Philipkoski

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66579,00.html

02:00 AM Feb. 14, 2005 PT

Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have tweaked HIV to create a gene therapy that attacks cancer tumors in mice.

The research is a step forward for the beleaguered field of gene therapy, which has enjoyed isolated successes and suffered repeated setbacks over the past 20 years. But tinkering and fine tuning will be the key to a successful gene therapy, UCLA researchers believe. They published their study in the Feb. 13 issue of Nature Medicine.

The UCLA AIDS Institute scientists genetically altered HIV and folded it into an envelope made of another virus called sindbis, which typically infects insects and birds. That turned the altered HIV into a missile that hunted down metastasized melanoma cells in the lungs of living mice.

"People might wonder if it's scary to use HIV as a therapy," said Irving Chen, who led the UCLA team. "But in actuality we have completely removed 80 percent of the virus. So really it's just a carrier."

Other researchers have tried morphing HIV into a gene therapy, with limited results.

"This hasn't been possible before," Chen said. "Usually (researchers) take a virus and try to modify its own envelope, but it falls off or becomes so deformed it is not able to infect cells anymore."

The secret to the UCLA researchers' success was adding the sindbis cloak, Chen said. He and his colleagues suspected the virus might make an HIV gene therapy more stable, and the results of the study showed they were right.

The scientists also inserted a glowing firefly protein into the virus to track its progress. They used a light-detection "cooled charged-coupled device," or CCCD, camera to look at the glowing protein inside live mice. Because the protein was attached to the gene therapy, the researchers could see that the treatment had hit its mark.

The researchers programmed the altered virus package to attack a protein on the cancer cell surface called p-glycoprotein, which causes problems in cancer patients by shuttling cancer drugs away from the cell. In other words, p-glycoprotein causes resistance to cancer medication. Scientists could customize the system to target any protein on the surface of a cell, Chen said. He and his colleagues have seen success with about a dozen different molecules, including brain and other blood cells, he said.

More incremental work, with the goal of increasing the precision of the treatment and reducing the chance of side effects, is necessary before this type of gene therapy can be tested in humans, Chen said. In a premature human trial in 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died during a gene therapy clinical trial at the University of Pennsylvania, which led to an FDA investigation and closure of the Penn gene therapy program.

"I think one of the problems with gene therapy has been whenever people get a new approach they immediately go into patients," Chen said. "Our approach has been test in cell culture, then in mice. We're not planning any clinical trials until this is fully refined."
Click to expand...

Kandahar · Feb 14, 2005

Very interesting. I don't know if I'd want to be experimented on with HIV, but if the doctors say it's safe they probably know better than I do.

EllisDTripp · Feb 14, 2005

I dunno, if I had a cancer that was a certain death sentence I would certainly take the risk of contracting HIV in order to cure it. You can live many years with HIV if you manage your health and stay on the drugs....

nimh · Feb 14, 2005

wow, can anything good actually come of this? that just boggles my mind.

you're right though, ellis...sometimes a clinical trial is the only chance some people can see for themselves.

gertie · Feb 14, 2005

it intrigues the mind, but maks me worry a bit. i mean if they can tweak HIV to attack cancer, then where are they in their HIV/AIDS research? where is the note of progress in combating HIV/AIDS?

stuntdragon1 · Feb 15, 2005

Mankind never ceases to amaze me with his accomplishments.

MattInVegas · Feb 16, 2005

Jesus, Ellis. This sounds JUST like an American, REPUBLICAN idea.
It's that STUPID.
Cancer patients can live NATURAL life spans without medication, depending on the type of cancer they have. WHY take the risk of getting AIDS?
(There is a difference between HIV and AIDS as Ellis knows. I only mention this to educate the rest of you.)

EllisDTripp · Feb 16, 2005

MattInVegas said:

Jesus, Ellis. This sounds JUST like an American, REPUBLICAN idea.
It's that STUPID.
Cancer patients can live NATURAL life spans without medication, depending on the type of cancer they have. WHY take the risk of getting AIDS?
Click to expand...

Well, human trials are a LONG way off, and I'm sure the only patients who are going to be allowed into clinical trials would be those with aggressive, metastatic cancers that aren't responding to other treatments. I'm sure this kind of treatment will not be used for slow-growing cancers or those that respond well to surgical or other approaches.

InFlames420 · Feb 16, 2005

very interesting, makes you wonder how far off we are to curing cancer

fat_tony · Feb 16, 2005

a very, very long way

EllisDTripp · Feb 16, 2005

A cure for cancer has been "about 50 years from now" for about the last 50 years. Kinda like nuclear fusion power....

nimh · Feb 16, 2005

InFlames420 said:

very interesting, makes you wonder how far off we are to curing cancer
Click to expand...

any possible 'cures' to cancer will be buried by the pHarma-corps. it's just not something that we'll ever see. Unfortunately, there's no profit to a cancer 'cure'

Log in or Sign up

Fighting cancer with genetically-modified HIV!

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

Kandahar Banned

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

nimh ~foodie~

gertie Senior Member

stuntdragon1 Member

MattInVegas John Denver Mega-Fan

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

InFlames420 Member

fat_tony Member

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

nimh ~foodie~

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Fighting cancer with genetically-modified HIV!

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

Kandahar Banned

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

nimh ~foodie~

gertie Senior Member

stuntdragon1 Member

MattInVegas John Denver Mega-Fan

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

InFlames420 Member

fat_tony Member

EllisDTripp Green Secessionist

nimh ~foodie~

Share This Page

Useful Searches