Viruses Used to Treat Cancer

Posted by Tami Port Jun 11, 2008

Viral Gene and Drug Therapy

Viruses are parasites that specialize in getting their genetic material into living cells. And science is now finding a way to put the talents of viruses to good use. Dr. Myongsoo Lee and his team of researchers at Yonsei Univeristy, recently published an article in Angewandte Chemie in which they reported successfully using an artificial virus to transport genes and drugs into cancer cells.

Natural & Artificial Viruses

Naturally occurring viruses are good at moving genes into cells and have been used for gene therapy, but natural viruses can trigger the body’s immune response and some can even cause cancer.

Artificial viruses don’t have these side effects, but have not been shown to be particularly effective so far because their size and shape (features vital to a viruses’ effectiveness) have been hard to control. It looks like Myongsoo Lee has developed a new strategy that allows the artificial viruses to maintain the shape the require in order to work in gene therapy.

Moving Genes and Therapeutics into Cancer Cells

Lee performed trials using human cancer cells and demonstrated that his artificial viruses could effectively transport RNA (a nucleic acid similar to DNA) into a cancer cell and block the expression of a target gene.

These researchers were also able to attach other molecules to the artificial viruses that then transported these molecules into the nuclei (the genetic command center) of tumor cells, where many antitumor drugs exert their effects.

Author of Study: Myongsoo Lee, Yonsei University, Seoul (Korea)

Title: Filamentous Artificial Virus from a Self-Assembled Discrete Nanoribbon

Journal: Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2008, 47, No. 24, 4525

To learn more about viruses in general, see these Suite101 articles:

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