“Every patient’s cancer is unique, so if we want to cure every cancer, we may need to customize our therapies for each patient,” said Dr. John Bell. “Our novel approach provides a rapid way to do this.” Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital, the University of Ottawa and Université de Sherbrooke Cancer Research Institute (IRCUS) have developed a novel approach to create tiny “mobile pharmacies” that can get inside tumours and dispense anti-cancer drugs. The approach involves using multiple anti-cancer viruses, each potentially producing different anti-cancer therapies.

Results published in Nature Biomedical Engineering showed that this strategy could cure 100% of mice with a certain kind of cancer, and could rapidly be customized for different kinds of cancer.

By using common antibiotics in an unconventional way, the researchers were able to develop the novel viruses in just days, compared to traditional approaches that require several months.

“Every patient’s cancer is unique, so if we want to cure every cancer, we may need to customize our therapies for each patient,” said Dr. John Bell, co-senior author on the study, together with Dr. Taha Azad. “Our novel approach provides a rapid way to do this.”

See the media release from IRCUS for details.

Authors: Reza Rezaei, Stephen Boulton, Mahsa Ahmadi, Julia Petryk, Miles Da Silva, Nika Kooshki Zamani, Ragunath Singaravelu, Gabriel St-Laurent, Lauren Daniel, Arezoo Sadeghipour, Adrian Pelin, Joanna Poutou, Abril Ixchel Munoz Zuniga, Clarence Choy, Victoria H. Gilchrist, Zumama Khalid, Bradley Austin, Kemal Alper Onsu, Ricardo Marius, Zahra Ameli, Fazel Mohammadi, Valeria Mancinelli, Emily Wang, Abolfazl Nik-Akhtar, Akram Alwithenani, Fatemeh Panahi Arasi, Stephen S. G. Ferguson, Tom C. Hobman, Tommy Alain, Lee-Hwa Tai, Carolina S. Ilkow, Jean-Simon Diallo, John C. Bell & Taha Azad

Core resources: Flow Cytometry, Histology

Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Cancer Society, Prostate Cancer Canada, BioCanRx, Terry Fox Foundation