Ontario’s leadership in the field of biotherapeutics research was bolstered last June when the Ministry of Research and Innovation announced that it would provide more than $23 million to support six world-class biotherapeutics projects and 100 researchers at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa.
“Biotherapeutics” refers to therapies based on biological materials, including cells, genes and viruses. A growing body of evidence indicates that these biological therapies have the potential to be much more powerful than traditional pharmaceutical therapies. They can be programmed to target diseased tissue without harming normal tissue, and some can also replicate once inside the body.
One of the projects, with funding exceeding $ 4 million, is led by Dr. Michael McBurney, Program Director, Cancer Therapeutics, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Private sector partners include Jennerex Biotherapeutics. This project will focus on the use of oncolytic viruses (meaning that they are destructive to tumour cells) in cancer therapy. An oncolytic virus infects and breaks down cancer cells but not normal cells, so oncolytic therapy is described as “targeted.”
The study and development of oncolytic viral therapies promises to expand dramatically, particularly in the use of what are referred to as “reoviruses” for the reduction of heretofore untreatable tumours and for pain management, which is the basis of at least one pending patent application.
