"the use of poultry viruses as cancer therapy poses no threat to humans"

[tropical]

Veterinary College Researchers Awarded Grant to Study Poultry Virus as Human Cancer Treatment
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poult...study-poultry-virus-as-human-cancer-treatment

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Veterinary College Researchers Awarded Grant to Study Poultry Virus as Human Cancer Treatment

US - Researchers on the Blacksburg and College Park, Maryland, campuses of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine have been awarded a new grant from the National Institutes of Health to support innovative work that seeks to develop a treatment for cancer from a common avian virus.



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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>This is the second major grant awarded to Drs. Elankumaran Subbiah of Blacksburg, Virginia, assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, and Siba Samal of College Park, Maryland, associate dean of the college’s University of Maryland campus, for the work aiming to create a cancer therapy from genetically altered Newcastle Disease virus.

According to the American Cancer Society, cancer accounts for nearly one-quarter of all deaths in the United States, exceeded only by heart diseases. It is estimated that 1.4 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2007 alone.

The National Institutes of Health $430,000 R21 grant will allow Subbiah and Samal to build upon existing work that is focused on the use of reverse genetics to alter the Newcastle Disease virus to treat prostate cancer.

Reverse genetics is the process of generating a recombinant virus from cloned complimentary DNA or cDNA copy, said Prof Subbiah. Through the reverse genetics system, recombinant viruses can be designed to have specific properties that make them attractive as biotechnological tools, live vaccines, and cancer therapies. The change is achieved through the introduction of the desired changes in the cDNA, which are then transferred faithfully to the recombinant virus.

"This differs from the previous work in that the recombinant [Newcastle Disease virus] will be targeted against different types of proteases," said Prof Subbiah. "Different types of cancer cells secrete different types of proteases. We are tailoring the virus to match the type of protease secreted by the cancer cells." According to Prof Subbiah, the use of poultry viruses as cancer therapy poses no threat to humans and several other oncolytic viruses are currently being explored to treat cancer. However, Prof Subbiah's work is the first to alter the Newcastle disease virus through a reverse genetic system for selective protease targeting. Oncolytic virus therapy has gained much attention recently as a result of the progress in understanding virus-host interactions and because currently available chemotherapy is not entirely satisfactory for several reasons, including the possibility of an individual’s development of resistance to drugs. "We are excited about the endless possibilities that Newcastle disease virus offers to treat cancer," said Prof Subbiah.


ThePoultrySite News Desk
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[AlaskaDenise]

Re: "the use of poultry viruses as cancer therapy poses no threat to humans"

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=articleheader>Cancer hope from bird flu cousin
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=articleauthor>T.V. JAYAN</TD></TR><TR><TD class=story align=left>

New Delhi, Feb. 25: The bird flu virus may be a global threat but another poultry killer is a possible friend-in-waiting for humans.
Two India-born scientists in the US have befriended the Newcastle Disease virus, popularly known in India as Ranikhet virus, to seek a better cure for deadly cancers.

Siba Samal and Elankumaran Subbiah, who have their roots in Orissa and Tamil Nadu, have unravelled the mechanism by which the virus rips open tumour cells while leaving normal, healthy cells intact.

This knowledge has helped the duo ? both work with the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine ? design a modified Newcastle Disease (ND) virus that can seek and destroy cancer cells in laboratory conditions.

?We have identified the reason the ND virus does not replicate in normal cells but only in tumour cells,? Subbiah told The Telegraph.

The reason is that interferon, a natural protein that protects cells from foreign bodies, clamps down on the virus as it tries to replicate in normal cells.

Tumour cells have a defective interferon response system. So the virus thrives in these cells, triggering apoptosis ? a programmed cell death or cell suicide.

The Indian researchers? exploits with the altered ND virus won them a grant from the US National Institutes of Health.

The novel element in their work is the use of reverse genetics to alter the ND virus. Reverse genetics is the process of generating a recombinant virus by putting together copies of complementary DNA.

Such designer viruses have specific properties that make them attractive as biotechnological tools, live vaccines and cancer therapies.

Samal and Subbiah plan to use the money to test the modified ND virus system on animal models to generate safety and efficacy data so that it can be taken to the next level of clinical trials in humans.

?But we are several years away from human clinical trials,? Subbiah said. The first disease they intend to target with the new therapy is prostrate cancer, though their research has demonstrated its effectiveness against many others.

Cancer-killing viruses, once found effective and safe for use, can either replace or work along with existing forms of tumour treatment such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, both of which have pronounced side effects.

The ND virus belongs to a class of viruses that scientists call oncolytic. These viruses can selectively infect and destroy cancer cells and leave normal cells unharmed. Another oncolytic virus is the polio virus.

The use of poultry viruses in cancer therapy poses no threat to humans, Subbiah said. ?The host?s immune system will respond to the virus and eventually clear it.?

?The ND virus is 101 per cent safe for humans, though it affects unvaccinated birds with a varying degree of fatality,? said S.V. Vaidya, an independent poultry consultant in Pune.

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