A study published in Nature last week shows that an engineered form of the smallpox virus could revolutionise cancer treatment.

Although using viruses to attack cancer is nothing new, researchers at the University of Ottawa have engineered a form of Smallpox that selectively replicates within cancerous tissue.

The JX-594 virus ‘selectively infects, replicates and expresses transgene products in cancer tissue after intravenous infusion in dose-related fashion,’ described the paper’s authors.
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