London scientists are seeking to create a “Trojan horse” version of the flu virus to target advanced prostate cancer.
A team at Barts Cancer Institute has won £245,000 from Prostate Cancer UK to continue pioneering research into a disease that kills 11,500 men a year.
Early trials on mice have shown that the flu virus can be re-engineered to kill prostate cancer cells that have “metastasised” and spread away from the main tumour.
However, this has proved difficult in humans because the body’s natural defence mechanism seeks to neutralise the virus before it can have an effect.
Prostate cancer is on target to become the UK’s most commonly diagnosed cancer by 2030
The team, led by Dr Gunnel Halldén, will look to add proteins to the adapted virus to prevent it being destroyed before it reaches cancerous cells.
“It’s a simplified version of a Trojan horse,” she said. “Our first study proved very successful when the virus was injected directly into cancer cells in mice and used alongside standard chemotherapy drugs.
“However, we wanted to find a way of delivering it via the blood so it can reach all tumours in the body at once, instead of being injected into just one. This has proven difficult in the past, but by ‘packaging’ the virus with special proteins to help protect it as it travels through the blood, we hope the virus can survive long enough to reach the tumours.”
Drugs such as abiraterone already exist for metastatic prostate cancer but are expensive and are only able to extend life rather than offer a cure.
Prostate cancer becomes advanced when it spreads beyond the prostate gland, normally to the lymph nodes and bones.
Dr Halldén hopes to start clinical trials in patients in five years if her current research is a success and extra funding can be secured. The hope is that the treatment would offer a potential cure rather than just extending life.
Prostate Cancer UK has awarded a total of £2.5 million to six teams of London researchers focusing on advanced prostate cancer.
Dr Amanda Swain, of the Institute of Cancer Research, will create “mini tumour” models of prostate cancer to test how tumours grow and become resistant to treatments.
She said: “We currently have very few ways to test new precision medicine treatments before they can be trialled in patients.
“These ‘mini tumours’ will help us understand which genes allow them to grow, respond to treatments or become resistant. We’ll be making our mini tumours available for use by other researchers to help develop even more treatments.”
Dr Matthew Hobbs, deputy director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “Prostate cancer is on target to become the UK’s most commonly diagnosed cancer by 2030.
“Every year more than 9,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer too late and told that it can’t be cured. That’s why we’re funding innovative research like this to benefit men diagnosed with a later stage of the disease.”
