Zika virus successfully harnessed as brain cancer therapy

Researchers have found a way of harnessing the dangerous Zika virus as a means of combating a deadly form of brain cancer.

A team from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis and the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have shown that the virus can be used to kill brain cancer stem cells as a means to addressing glioblastoma.

Zika is known for causing damage to the brains of developing foetuses, resulting in deformities at birth. However, scientists have been able to redirect the harmful actions of the virus and use them to kill malignant cells instead.

Tests designed to determine whether Zika was able to kill stem cells in glioblastomas removed from patients at diagnosis showed that the virus infected and killed the cancer stem cells, while largely avoiding other tumour cells.

The study's co-senior author Michael  Diamond, professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, said: "We showed that Zika virus can kill the kind of glioblastoma cells that tend to be resistant to current treatments and lead to death."

Efforts are now being made to introduce additional mutations to further sensitise the virus to innate immune responses and prevent the infection from spreading, with the aim of making it impossible for it to cause disease.

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