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Why use a virus to cure Cancer? Well the reason is simple:
we can design a virus which is completely disabled so it cannot infect
normal human cells,
but can only divide inside cancer cells.
Now these oncolytic virus' work, just like
any virus. So let me explain. A virus
simply, is inanimate. It doesn't live,
it doesn't breathe, virus' don't use energy. And, in a sense, you can't kill a
virus, because it's not a living thing.
Virus' are simply machines. Microscopic,
atomic, nanobotype machines.
They have a capsule which protects
the genetic code inside the virus from the environment.
They have legs. They have feet, feet which are designed to latch onto human cells.
And inside the virus is genetic code.
Genetic code is the language of life. It's what
makes your hair red, or brown, or
black. It's what give you the size of your nose.
Genetic code is what gives us language ability as a human species.
genes are the universal language of life. And
the genetic code that we have in humans is fundamentally written in the same way
as the genetic code
in mosquitoes, in earthworms, in bacteria.
That's the miracle of life. That you can take a gene from a human being,
for insulin, for example, and put it in to
a microbe and grow those microbes in the laborotory, and they will grow pure human
insulin for you.
This is the extraordinary thing that we can do with genes. Now,
a virus is just a gene-
delivering machine. That's what it is. And when we alter the genes inside a
virus,
we can change the genetic codes, the commands
that we're going to give to cells when they're infected. So the virus
is injected into the body, either directly into a tumour
or into the blood supply. Of course, if you do it into a vein,
you going to probably need to use, many more, virus particles.
And when the virus touches cancer cells,
it delivers its genetic code, and the genetic code is activated.
Why? Because these cancer cells have a particular
characteristic that the virus needs. These virus'
these oncolytic virus' have been deliberately damaged
in the laboratory. They are ineffective in
normal cells. But, inside cancer cells,
they are highly activated, highly effective,
taking command and control of a cancer cell, and instructing it to make
more virus particles. So that's why,
oncolytic virus' are so fascinating to researchers,
and why there is now such intense interest amongst
oncologists around the world, in how they can use
oncolytic virus' to treat their own patients,
alongside, all the things they are already doing
such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.