New research out of the University of Guelph may be a game changer in the fight against cancer.
Pathobiology professor Byram Bridle and his team found that injecting viruses, which are used as booster vaccines that target cancer cells, intravenously into the spleens of mice and cats allowed for the immune system to combat cancers on a much higher scale than traditional methods.
“Normally, you have to wait until the immune response is down to administer the booster vaccine, but this means that, with severe and dangerous diseases, the response would wane,” said Bridle.
The normal wait time of weeks or months it takes to be able to administer the booster is bypassed with this new finding, ultimately meaning treatment is full-on without time for the cancer to grow.
“You don’t want to give cancer any time to spread,” Bridle said.
“Injecting the viruses into the spleen …allows us to bypass the regulatory mechanism that would limit its effectiveness. When we conducted these tests in animals, we saw high success rates in treatment of cancer.”
Bridle and his team at the Ontario Veterinary College found that under traditional methods of cancer treatment, tumors in mice grew and ultimately died, whereas with this new treatment the tumors actually disappeared.
The treatment has already led to human trials.
Bridle also said that the added benefit of this type of treatment is that the location of the cancer in the body doesn’t have to be known in order for it to work.
He also said that this study could help treat other diseases like Ebola.
“My research focuses on cancer, but certainly these findings would be applicable to other diseases. We just need to connect with people in those fields,” he said.
“We are living in a world where diseases seem to be growing faster than treatment, so we need to outpace them. Time is of the essence. It’s a race we have to win.”
