Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

A cure for cancer, the leading cause of death in Canada, has yet to be found. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are modified viruses that selectively infect and kill cancer cells. Although they have shown promise, its success has been limited by the cancer's natural anti-virus response. Our lab has recently shown that drugs containing the metal vanadium can increase the virus' cancer killing effect. Vanadium does this by lowering the anti-virus defence while strengthening the patient's immune system against the tumour. Unfortunately, vanadium is not easily delivered to the human body; therefore, our project aims to create a new virus product that imitates vanadium's beneficial effects. To do this, we will first identify how vanadium boosts the effect of the virus by screening for its different targets within the cell. We will then code genetic instructions to block these identified targets into the virus. By looking at measures like the amount of virus infection and cancer cell death, we can assess how effective our designer virus is in human and mouse cancer cells. Next, we will assess how well our virus works in mouse models. After identifying a safe dose and no dangerous side effects, mice bearing tumours will be injected with our virus. We will monitor how quickly the tumours shrink with treatment and whether their survival is improved. The ability for the mouse to produce long-term tumour protection will then be measured by looking at their immune response and monitoring whether mice recover when given a second tumour. If successful, this strategy that combines the advantages of both oncolytic viruses and vanadium while overcoming their disadvantages represents a promising treatment option for cancer patients. We hope to eventually have the product ready for health and safety testing in human clinical trials. This work will also lead to a better understanding of how the body reacts to viral infection and provide insight into new treatment strategies.