“Immune-based therapies for cancer are showing great promise and we hope that research such as this will lead to more benefits for patients,” -Dr. Jean-Simon DialloCancer-fighting viruses have shown promise in laboratory models and clinical trials, but researchers are still working to optimize these innovative therapies so they can be used more widely in patients.

One promising avenue of research, led by Dr. Jean-Simon Diallo, is to combine cancer-fighting viruses with drugs that have been approved to treat other conditions. His latest study, published in Frontiers in Immunology, shows that the MS drug dimethyl fumarate can boost the cancer-fighting ability of a genetically-engineered form of the HSV-1 virus.

The research team first showed that the combination worked in cancer cells and human tumour samples growing in a dish. Then they showed that it shrank tumours and improved survival in mice with cancer, with significantly greater effects compared to either therapy on its own. They also investigated how the combination therapy affected the immune system and immune cells within tumours.

“Immune-based therapies for cancer are showing great promise and we hope that research such as this will lead to more benefits for patients,” said Dr. Diallo, senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa.

Authors: Alwithenani A, Taha Z, Thomson M, Chen A, Wong B, Arulanandam R, Diallo JS.

Funding: Terry Fox Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Cancer Society, Lotte & John Hecht Memorial Foundation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Umm AlQura University

Core resources: Flow Cytometry

The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa and supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.