[Future Tech]
I read an interesting article in the New Scientist today about scientists who are creating oncolytic viruses to selectively kill cancerous cells.
The first generation of this research has involved co-opting a virus, such as hepatitis, stripping it of its glycoproteins and coating it with new ones which selectively bind known cancer glycoproteins. The process has been successfully used to treat brain cancer in human patients, however the results are inconsistent. It is posited that this may be because the host’s immune system mounts a response against the viruses before they have successfully replicated within the body.
The second generation of this technology is currently underway and focuses on ways to allow the co-opted viruses to evade the host immune system, reduce incubation time, and increase the rate of apoptosis. Doctors seem to think that a “combined arms” approach will be most successful.
This idea is not new, however it is only recently that science has reached a point where precision engineering of viruses is possible. The treatment is viewed as promising compared to chemotherapy, because of the drastically reduced rate of attrition (1000:1 cancer cells killed per healthy cell vs. 6:1 in chemotherapy).
The time is rapidly approaching when biologists and their computer systems will be able to custom design silver bullet bioweapons to take out diseases faster then the diseases can mutate to become immune to these attacks.
