Virginia Tech study finds promising new prostate cancer treatment

The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has found a chicken-killing virus to be a potentially successful new treatment for prostate cancer.

Experts have found that a genetically engineered Newcastle disease virus can kill prostate cancer cells of all kinds, including hormone-resistant cancer cells.

Work has been carried out by Dr Elankumaran Subbiah, associate professor of virology in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology and Dr Siba Samal, associate dean and chairman of the University of Maryland’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, and Shobana Raghunath.

The two experts' studies appear in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology. It is hoped that the development of better treatments will help to tackle prostate cancer and lower the side effects associated with hormone treatments and chemotherapy.

Dr Subbiah said: "This potential treatment is available for immediate pre-clinical and clinical trials, but these are typically not done at the university level.

"We are looking for commercial entities that are interested in licensing the technology for human clinical trials and treatment. Newcastle disease virus has yet to be tested as a treatment for prostate cancer in patients."

He went on to say that the virus has been modified in order to replicate the presence of an active prostate-specific antigen.

"The recombinant virus efficiently and specifically killed prostate cancer cells, while sparing normal human cells in the laboratory, but it would take time for this to move from the discovery phase to a treatment for prostate cancer patients," Mr Subbiah stated.

The researchers have picked up a National Institutes of Health exploaratory grant in order to develop the cell-type specific Newcastle disease virus for other types of cancer cells, such as breast, pancreas, brain, prostate and multiple myeloma.

Mr Subbiah explained that the virus could potentially treat the different types of cancer, but the aforementioned five are being focused on.