In oncolytic virotherapy, the ability of the virus to activate the immune system is a key attribute with regard to long-term antitumor effects. Vaccinia viruses bear one of the strongest oncolytic activities among all oncolytic viruses. However, its capacity for stimulation of antitumor immunity is not optimal, mainly due to its immunosuppressive nature. To overcome this problem, we developed a...

Oncolytic viruses are genetically altered replication-competent viruses which infect, and reproduce in, cancer cells but do not harm normal ∗Corresponding author: Mathematical Biosciences Institute, The Ohio State University, 18th Avenue, Columbus OH 43210, USA. E-mail address: [email protected].

Oncolytic viruses and radiotherapy represent two diverse areas of cancer therapy, utilizing quite different treatment modalities and with non-overlapping cytotoxicity profiles. It is, therefore, an intriguing possibility to consider that oncolytic ("cancer-killing") viruses may act as cancer-selective radiosensitizers, enhancing the therapeutic consequences of radiation treatment on tumors whil...

Experimental evolution has been used for various biotechnological applications including protein and microbial cell engineering, but less commonly in the field of oncolytic virotherapy. Here, we sought to adapt a rapidly evolving RNA virus to cells deficient for the tumor suppressor gene p53, a hallmark of cancer cells. To achieve this goal, we established four independent evolution lines of th...

Oncolytic viruses which infect and kill tumour cells can also be genetically modified to express therapeutic genes that augment their anti-cancer activities. Modifying oncolytic viruses to produce effective cancer therapies is challenging as encoding transgenes often attenuates virus activity or prevents systemic delivery in patients due to the risk of off-target expression of transgenes in hea...

Oncolytic viruses are novel immunotherapeutic agents that appear to mediate potent antineoplastic effects in both preclinical and clinical settings. Recent studies demonstrate that manipulating the mechanisms whereby cancer cells die in the course of oncolytic virotherapy has potential to boost anticancer immune responses.

The association between natural viral infection and remission of cancer has been described for over a 100 years. 1 The clinical observations that microbial infection of tumor may produce direct killing of cancer or through host immune actions are the basis of the field of oncolytic viral therapy. Astute investigators in the 1950's through the 1960's attempted to capitalize on such observations ...

BACKGROUND Oncolytic viruses represent a novel form of cancer immunotherapy. Vaccinia viruses encoding human T cell co-stimulatory molecules have demonstrated clinical activity in phase I clinical trials in patients with advanced melanoma. However, predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response have not yet been identified. METHODS A customized microarray was performed to identify changes in p...

Correspondence: Z Sheng Guo University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, 5117 Centre Avenue, Suite 1.46, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Tel +1 412 623 7711 Fax +1 412 623 7709 Email [email protected] Abstract: The hypoxic tumor microenvironment plays significant roles in tumor cell metabolism and survival, tumor growth, and progression. Hypoxia modulates target genes in target cells mainly through an oxy...