Thursday, October 4, 2007

Common Virus Kills Cancer

Hello friends,
It wasn't the prostitutes today that inspired me to post - but viruses as a treatment for cancer!

I found a cool video on CNN about AAV-2 (Adeno-Associated Virus 2) and the findings are from 2005:

AAV-2 is a small virus that cannot replicate itself without the help of another virus. But with the help of a second virus it kills cells.

For their study, Meyers and colleagues first infected a batch of human cells with HPV, some strains of which cause cervical cancer. They then infected these cells and normal cells with AAV-2.

After six days, all the HPV-infected cells died.

The same thing happened with cervical, breast, prostate and squamous cell tumor cells.

This videos ties in a lot of topics we talked about today - satellite viruses, viruses which could target cancer cells, adeno-associated viruses. Plus I just like videos :) Enjoy!

Video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2005/06/23/monie.cancer.treatment.whp
Article: http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/22/cancer.virus/

Stephanie

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