The Fondation Cancer has given €426,000 to a research project for the development of cancer treatments using oncolytic viruses.
In order to support research, Dr. Carlo Bock and Lucienne Thommes, , President and Director of the Fondation Cancer respectively, presented a check for €426,000 to the researcher Dr Antonio Marchini, in the presence of Mr Karl-Heinz Dick, administrative and financial director of the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH).
With this amount, the Cancer Foundation co-funds a research project jointly led by the LIH and the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ) entitled ‘Moving innovative oncolytic virus-based therapies into the clinic’. This research project aims at the development of cancer treatments using oncolytic viruses.
Oncolytic Viruses – Promising Anti-Cancer Agents Oncolytic viruses are promising anti-cancer agents because they infect cancer cells, multiply and destroy them, while provoking effective immune responses.
Adenoviruses are among the viruses most commonly used in vaccines and for the transfer of therapeutic genes. Dr Marchini and his team aim to further develop this new technology and to study the therapeutic potential of Ad-PV chimeras, hoping to provide preclinical evidence of their enhanced anticancer activity.
The goal is to develop a second generation of Ad-PV chimeric viruses and to test strategies for combining chimeric viruses with other cancer therapies. Initially, glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer will be targeted, which are among the most fatal cancers. Their aim is to launch a first clinical trial in Luxembourg within five years
