Polio Virus Used To Cure Brain Cancer

Brain cancer, also known as glioblastoma, are the last two words any patient wants to hear from their doctor. Patients who have received this diagnosis have likened it to a death sentence. 

Oddly enough, what was also considered a death sentence 50 years ago could end up giving brain cancer patients a fighting shot. Researchers from the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University have re-engineered the polio virus to cure brain tumors by removing a key genetic sequence.

Polio is an infectious disease caused by a virus that often results in irreversible paralysis and death. 

Following a global effort to eradicate the disease, the number of polio cases around the world has decreased from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 416 reported cases in 2013.

“So cancers, all human cancers, they develop a shield or shroud of protective measures that make them invisible to the immune system,” Dr. Matthias Gromeier, a professor of neurosurgery, molecular genetics, and microbiology at Duke, told CBS's 60 Minutes. 

“And this is precisely what we try to reverse with our virus. So by infecting the tumor, we are actually removing this protective shield. And telling the— enabling the immune system to come in and attack.”

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