Cancer-hunting Viruses

Viruses have a reputation for causing us harm but a special group of viruses which target tumour cells – oncolytic adenoviruses – are now being developed to treat cancer. Researchers look at the potential of one such virus called Ad5/3. Mice with compromised immune systems and tumours had Ad5/3 injected into their bloodstream. Ad5/3 was able to bind to and then be released from blood cells, as captured here on a white cell using scanning electron microscopy. Travelling on these cells, Ad5/3 (red) reached, invaded and specifically killed tumour cells. What’s more, it was able to do this in the presence of neutralising antibodies, which the body creates to destroy viruses. This provides new hope for Ad5/3 as a future cancer therapy.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Sadia Zafar, Dafne Carolina and Alves Quixabeira, and colleagues
• Cancer Gene Therapy Group, Translational Immunology Research Program and Department of Oncology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Cancer Gene Therapy, September 2020