F*Q
发帖数: 3259 | 1 中医的以毒攻毒在治疗癌症方面的应用！
From New York Times
Viruses Recruited as Killers of Tumors
By RACHEL NUWER
Published: March 19, 2012
THE HYPOTHESIS
Viruses can be designed to attack tumors.
THE INVESTIGATORS
Dr. Robert Martuza, Harvard Medical School; Dr. Bernard Roizman, University
of Chicago; Dr. Ian Mohr, New York University.
In 1951, a 4-year-old boy with leukemia contracted chickenpox. His liver and
spleen, swollen by the cancer, soon returned to normal, and his elevated
blood cell count fell to that of a healthy child.
His doctors at the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology in San Francisco were
thrilled by his sudden remission, but the blessing was short-lived. After
one month, his leukemia returned and progressed rapidly until the child’s
death.
In the early 1900s, not much could be done for cancer patients. Unless
surgeons could excise a tumor, the disease typically spelled a swift and
inevitable end. But in dozens of published cases over the years, doctors
noticed a peculiar trend: Struggling cancer patients sometimes enjoyed a
brief reprieve from their malignancies when they caught a viral infection.
It was not a coincidence. Common viruses sometimes attack tumor cells,
researchers discovered. For decades, they tried to harness this phenomenon,
to transform it into a cancer treatment. Now, after a long string of
failures, they are nearing success with viruses engineered to kill cancer.
“It’s a very exciting time,” said Dr. Robert Martuza, chief neurosurgeon
at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of neuroscience at
Harvard Medical School. “I think it will work out in some tumor, with some
virus.” Candidates are already in advanced trials, he noted.
Cancer cells are able to replicate wildly, but there’s a trade-off: They
cannot ward off infection as effectively as healthy cells. So scientists
have been looking for ways to create viruses that are too weak to damage
healthy cells yet strong enough to invade and destroy tumor cells. It has
been a long, difficult challenge.
Researchers started down this road in 1904, when they discovered that women
with cervical cancer temporarily recovered when given a rabies vaccination.
By midcentury, physicians were administering live viruses to cancer patients
. They tried infecting terminally ill children with polio and adenovirus.
They injected patients with concoctions from the feces of normal children,
from sick chickens, and from “feline spleen suspension” of rural kittens
infected with “cat plague.”
These experiments proved ill fated. The cancer returned, or — in the worst
cases — the injections themselves caused “the development of lethal
infection in the host,” according to a 1964 American Journal of Pathology
report.
The field was abandoned for a time. But in 1991, Dr. Martuza seized upon the
idea of using the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) as a cancer-fighter.
The genome of HSV-1 is comparatively large and can accommodate a number of
mutations and deletions. Dr. Martuza weakened the virus by removing some of
its genes. The modified virus was injected into mice with brain cancer, and
it did bring about remission. But most of the mice died of encephalitis.
In 1990, Bernard Roizman, a virologist at the University of Chicago, found a
“master gene” in the herpes virus. When this gene is removed, the virus
no longer has the strength to overcome healthy cells’ defenses. As it
turned out, the modified virus was so crippled that it could only slow tumor
growth.
Then, in 1996, Dr. Ian Mohr, a virologist at New York University, stumbled
on a way of further altering Dr. Roizman’s crippled virus. He exposed it
repeatedly to cancer cells until a new viral mutant evolved with the ability
to replicate in those cells.
Dr. Mohr and a doctoral student, Matt Mulvey, then engineered a way for
their virus to evade the immune system, making it an even more potent cancer
-killing agent.
Unlike chemotherapy, which can diminish in effectiveness over time,
oncolytic viruses multiply in the body and gain strength as the infection
becomes established. In addition to attacking cancer cells directly, some
also produce an immune response that targets tumors.
Today, several potential cancer-fighting viruses are in trials, including
two in Phase 3 trials.
An engineered form of vaccinia — the viral agent that helped eradicate
smallpox — is being tested against advanced liver cancer, the third leading
cause of cancer deaths globally. In a recent trial, survival for patients
treated with high doses of the virus, called JX-594, doubled to 14 months
from 7, compared with that of patients treated with low doses.
“To see that kind of response in a randomized trial is simply unheard of,”
said Tony Reid, the director of clinical investigation at the Moores Cancer
Center of the University of California, San Diego, who has no financial
ties to the virus’s manufacturer.
A herpes virus based on Dr. Mohr’s original discovery is in advanced trials
against melanoma; initial data showed a 26 percent response rate in patient
regression and survival. A reovirus is being tested against head and neck
cancers, often difficult to treat.
According to the researchers, the side effects of treatment with these
viruses are minimal, and include nausea, fatigue and aches. “In comparison
to what happens with standard chemotherapy, flulike symptoms are very
manageable,” said Dr. Reid, who has treated hundreds of patients with
oncolytic viruses.
Oncolytic viruses are likely to find a place in medicine, especially paired
with other therapies targeting difficult and aggressive tumors, said Gary
Hayward, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Herpesvirus Research Program. But
the “biology is complex,” Dr. Hayward warned, and progress is likely to
be incremental.
Dr. Mulvey now heads a firm in Baltimore testing viruses to fight melanoma
and bladder cancer. The biggest challenge now, he said, is simply convincing
others that the new treatment is “not science fiction.”
“Thankfully, that hurdle is diminishing,” he said. | h******1
发帖数: 384 | 2 世界上发现的所有粒子都得归功于毛主席。因为他老人家说过物质无限可分。
现在的标题党，也许是民科真多啊。
University
【在 F*Q 的大作中提到】
: 中医的以毒攻毒在治疗癌症方面的应用！
: From New York Times
: Viruses Recruited as Killers of Tumors
: By RACHEL NUWER
: Published: March 19, 2012
: THE HYPOTHESIS
: Viruses can be designed to attack tumors.
: THE INVESTIGATORS
: Dr. Robert Martuza, Harvard Medical School; Dr. Bernard Roizman, University
: of Chicago; Dr. Ian Mohr, New York University.
| F*Q
发帖数: 3259 | 3 买卖题上当然是民科居多了，搞点笑不好么？
话说回来，你还真不能看不起中医。那是咱华夏文明的结晶之一。
【在 h******1 的大作中提到】
: 世界上发现的所有粒子都得归功于毛主席。因为他老人家说过物质无限可分。
: 现在的标题党，也许是民科真多啊。
:
: University
| F*Q
发帖数: 3259 | 4 大家都不觉得那是中医的贡献么？ 至少idea是中医提出来的吧？
University
【在 F*Q 的大作中提到】
: 中医的以毒攻毒在治疗癌症方面的应用！
: From New York Times
: Viruses Recruited as Killers of Tumors
: By RACHEL NUWER
: Published: March 19, 2012
: THE HYPOTHESIS
: Viruses can be designed to attack tumors.
: THE INVESTIGATORS
: Dr. Robert Martuza, Harvard Medical School; Dr. Bernard Roizman, University
: of Chicago; Dr. Ian Mohr, New York University.
| F*I
发帖数: 2896 | 5 这关中医屁事哈？我还真耐着性子给读完了，结果压根没看到中医的影子，坑爹啊。 | F*Q
发帖数: 3259 | 6 我也没看到中医的影子，但我看到了中医的精神。
【在 F*I 的大作中提到】
: 这关中医屁事哈？我还真耐着性子给读完了，结果压根没看到中医的影子，坑爹啊。
| g*********5
发帖数: 2533 | 7 这怎么这么像一个科幻片的桥段...
科学家发现病毒可以治疗癌症
然后病毒失控扩散
一个老黑一个人在纽约，其他全是僵尸 |
|
