Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) have developed a new approach using the Zika virus to destroy brain cancer cells and inhibit tumor growth while sparing healthy cells.
Using Zika virus vaccine candidates developed at Duke-NUS, the team discovered how these strains target rapidly proliferating cells over mature cells—making them an ideal option to target fast-growing cancerous cells in the adult brain.
Zika virus is one such option in early development. The Duke-NUS team used Zika virus live-attenuated vaccine (ZIKV-LAV) strains, which are “weakened” viruses with limited ability to infect healthy cells but can still increase and spread within a tumor mass.
“We selected Zika virus because it naturally infects rapidly multiplying cells in the brain, allowing us to reach cancer cells that are traditionally difficult to target. Our ZIKV-LAV strains also replicate themselves in brain cancer cells, making this a living therapy that can spread and attack neighboring diseased cells,” said Dr. Carla Bianca Luena Victorio, first author of the paper and Senior Research Fellow at the Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Programme at Duke-NUS, in a press release on March 8, 2024.
Their study’s findings, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine in February 2024, potentially offer a new treatment alternative for brain cancer patients who currently have a poor prognosis.