Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are an emerging treatment option for multiple cancer types and have recently been the focus of extensive research to develop their therapeutic potential. OVs have been put into the improvement of their efficacy and safety profiles. There are many viruses which either have naturally oncolytic properties or have been engineered to specifically lyse tumor cells. The great feature of this therapy is that these viruses are able to specifically target tumor cells and thus healthy tissue is not damaged during the course of the treatment. There are multiple ways to improve the specificity of OVs, for example, taking advantage of pathways that are upregulated in tumor cells and not healthy cells and engineering a virus which relies on such a pathway for successful infection thereby rendering the virus incapable of infecting healthy tissue.

Innovative Oncolytic Viral Therapy Types

Generally, OVs fall into 2 classes: (1) viruses that naturally replicate preferentially in cancer cells and are non-pathogenic in humans often due to elevated sensitivity to innate antiviral signaling or dependence on oncogenic signaling pathways. These include autonomous parvoviruses, Newcastle disease virus (NDV), myxoma virus (MYXV), reovirus, and Seneca valley virus (SVV); and (2) viruses that are genetically-manipulated for use as vaccine vectors including measles virus (MV), vaccinia virus (VV), and poliovirus (PV), and/or those genetically-engineered with mutations/deletions in genes required for replication in normal, but not cancer cells including herpes simplex virus (HSV), adenovirus (Ad), and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). Genetic engineering has facilitated the rapid expansion of oncolytic viruses in the last 20 years, enabling an extensive range of potentially pathogenic viruses to be manipulated for safety and targeting.

To date, the best studied may be Herpes viruses of which some strains have been found to have native tumor cell tropism while others have been engineered to improve selectivity. Besides, various strains of recombinant vaccinia virus have shown promise as antineoplastic agents. Other viruses that have been explored as possible vehicles for immunomodulation in cancer include reovirus, Newcastle Disease Virus, Vesicular Stomatitis Virus, and measles.

Our Oncolytic Virus Construction Service

With years of experience in research of oncolytic viruses, QVirus™ platform expeditiously moves your oncolytic program forward for initial early-stage clinical evaluation. We provide a broad range of oncolytic virus engineering scope including herpes simplex virus, measles virus, adenovirus, vaccinia virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, and so on.