Not, it would seem, a panacea. Approach is interesting in that aspects of cancer biology make the cells more vulnerable to viral infection, eg supressed interferon production. Also a possible platform for immunotherapy ie getting the immune system to attack a virally infected cancer cell might wake up a more generalised immune response. But, medical grade virus is expensive to produce, and hard to think how a viral infection could eradicate 100% of the billions of cancer cells present in advanced disease. Also, humans get immune to viruses after infection.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/amgen-provides-update-on-ph...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talimogene_laherparepvec
Not, it would seem, a panacea. Approach is interesting in that aspects of cancer biology make the cells more vulnerable to viral infection, eg supressed interferon production. Also a possible platform for immunotherapy ie getting the immune system to attack a virally infected cancer cell might wake up a more generalised immune response. But, medical grade virus is expensive to produce, and hard to think how a viral infection could eradicate 100% of the billions of cancer cells present in advanced disease. Also, humans get immune to viruses after infection.