Track 12: Therapeutic viruses and Cancer cells
Despite the immune system's extensive defensive network's outstanding strength, one kind of threat is particularly difficult to eliminate. This develops when the body's cells go renegade, which causes the cancer phenomena. A recent study describes how employing the myxoma virus in combination with immunotherapy and virotherapy offers patients with cancer that are resistant to treatment fresh hope. The strategy combines two strategies that have each had significant success in treating certain malignancies. The study in virology explains how oncolytic virotherapy, a method that employs viruses to combat cancer, can work in conjunction with currently used immunotherapy methods to enhance the immune system's ability to effectively target and eradicate cancer cells. The immune system is made up of a variety of specialized cells that are created to patrol the body and react to dangers.
The immune system is engaged in an ongoing arms race with infections as they develop complex strategies to evade immune protection, spread throughout the body, and lead to disease. The new study emphasizes how immunotherapy can overcome the cancer resistance barrier when it is combined with virotherapy, specifically using T cells that have been infected with myxoma. Myxoma can directly target and destroy cancer cells, but it is more beneficial when it causes autolysis, a peculiar type of T-cell-directed cell death.
Apoptosis and pyroptosis, two other types of programmed cancer cell death generated by T-cells, are strengthened by this type of cell death. Cancerous cells nearby the ones the therapy is targeting are also eliminated during myxoma-mediated autosis, a process known as bystander death. Even in solid tumors that are notoriously difficult to cure, this action can significantly increase the aggressive eradication of cancer cells by dual therapy. To allow CAR T-cells or TCR cells to infiltrate the tumor environment, grow, and activate, a combined myxoma-immunotherapy method has the potential to convert so-called "cold tumors," which avoid immune system identification, into "hot tumors," which immune cells can recognize and eradicate.