Gene therapy effectively targets glioblastoma
scienceblog.com
Nov. 25, 2023, 6:33 p.m.
The cancer-attacking virus is an oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV), which is the same type of virus used in a therapy approved for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Unlike other clinical oHSVs, this therapy includes the ICP34.5 gene, which is often excluded from clinical oHSVs because it causes human disease in unmodified forms of the virus. However, the researchers hypothesized that this gene may be necessary to trigger a robust, pro-inflammatory response necessary for attacking the tumor. Therefore, they designed a version of the oHSV1 that contains the ICP34.5 gene but is also genetically “programmed” not to attack healthy brain cells.