Question: Is it possible that your new treatments could actualy cure cancer? Would it cure quicker than chemo therapy? Can you estimate how long it will take to create virus that is capable of destroying ONLY cancerous cells?

Louisa Chard answered on 23 Jun 2010:

We can already create viruses that only infect cancerous cells. The problem is that the efficacy is not as good as we’d like. As we learn more about cancer, we have realised that the immune system is going to be very important in clearing cancer, so we are trying now to create viruses that not only kill cancer cells effectively, but also stimulate the immune system to clear the cancer (we have to be a bit careful here as if you stimulate the immune system, the virus will also be cleared too quickly, so there is a bit of a balance to be found). The advantages of this type of treatment over chemothearpy are 1) often chemo os only pallitive ie: extends the life but doesn’t cure the cancer whereas virotherapy should offer a cure (note should) and 2) there are horrible side effects associated with chemo that reduces the quality of life, there are no such side effects with virotherapy so the quality of life should be much much better. We are developing these treattments as cures so fingers crossed they work.