Wellbeing of Women

2007 Grants

Development of an antibody-resistant adenovirus for virotherapy of ovarian cancer. Dr Joanne Morrison, Professor Leonard Seymour, Professor Sean Kehoe, Dr Simon Briggs and Dr Kerry Fisher, University of Oxford £123,513 over 3 years

LAY TITLE: Development of virus delivered therapy for ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is still the leading cause of death from gynaecological malignancy. Despite advances in radical surgery and chemotherapy, only 20-30% of women will survive for more than 5 years.

Viruses have been developed for use in anti-cancer treatments. Adenovirus, which normally causes a mild flu-like illness, can be modified so that it produces enzymes within cancer cells. These enzymes can then convert a non-toxic pro-drug into a chemotherapeutic agent. Previously we have used adenoviruses that are incapable of dividing. However, they are not powerful enough to penetrate through a large tumour mass. Adenovirus, when it divides with a cell, causes the cell to burst and die. We can now modify adenovirus so that it can only divide within cancer cells, so limiting any cell killing to cancer cells. This type of direct virotherapy can be combined with enzyme therapy to create ‘armed’ viruses, which are potentially powerful tools for the treatment of cancer.

This study is a continuation of a Research Training Fellowship and will identify why adenoviruses cause adhesions and why a specific polymer coating is able to prevent this. We also plan to develop new ways of coating adenoviruses, so that they can be protected from antibodies, and to use different types of adenoviruses that may overcome limitations of the more common adenoviruses, which have previously been used in clinical trials.

If an ideal virus can be generated for delivering gene therapy it will have major implications for all gene therapy, especially for cancer treatment, but also for other genetic conditions, such as cystic fibrosis.

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