May 15th, 2014

Doctors from the Mayo Clinic are studying an interesting way to combat cancer. Measles!

According to washingtonpost.com, Stacy Erholtz, a 50-year-old mother from Minnesota has been living with myeloma; a very specific type of cancer that affects the bone marrow. She had to contend with tumors growing all over her body, with no real end in sight. With so few options to help her fight it, doctors from the Mayo Clinic have decided to "enter the unknown".

In a two-patient clinical trial, doctors administered an injection of 100 billion (100,000,000,000) units of the measles virus. After 5 minutes, Erholtz suffered a terrible headache. Two-hours later, she was trembling and vomiting. Thirty-six hours later...her tumors began to shrink. 

Erholtz's cancer went into remission after just one injection of the virus (which was engineered for cancer therapy by Stephen Russell & his team).

While this is an incredible discovery, it is important to remember that this was a very specific case. Additionally, in this two-person clinical trial, the procedure was only successful with one patient. These sorts of studies, according to Tanios Bekaii-Saab, a researcher at Solove Research Institute in Ohio, have to be have to be confirmed in large, randomized clinical-trials before they get too excited about. It's still exciting no matter how you slice it!

According to the Star Tribune, "[Viruses] bind to tumors and use them as hosts to replicate their own genetic material; the cancer cells eventually explode and release the virus. Antiviral vaccines that have been rendered safe can produce the same effects and can also be modified to carry radioactive molecules to help destroy cancer cells without causing widespread damage to healthy cells around the tumors. The body’s immune system then attacks any remaining cancer that carries remnants of the vaccine’s genetic imprint."

Wether or not this is viable in the long-term, I'm sure no one can deny that its exciting to see scientists, doctors and researchers getting ever-closer to curing cancer. 

What do you guys think? Are we tampering with forces we were never meant to understand?! (what is this, a horror movie ad from the 50's?) Are you excited for this kind of advancement?! Sound off in the comments!

Frank Mitchell