Scientist treats her own cancer with viruses bred in the laboratory
Scientist treats her own cancer with viruses bred in the laboratory
A scientist who successfully Breast Cancer , by injecting the tumor with viruses bred in the laboratory, has triggered a discussion about the ethics of self -experimentation.
Beata Halassy found in 2020 at the age of 49 that she had breast cancer at the site of a previous mastectomy. It was the second return at this point since her left breast had been removed, and she did not want to undergo any further chemotherapy.
HALASSY, a virologist at the University of Zagreb, studied the literature and decided to take the matter with an untried treatment.
A case report published in the magazine Vaccines in August = "#Ref-Cr1" "Data-Action =" Anchor-Link "Data-Track label =" Go to Reference "Data Track-Category =" Reference "> 1 href = "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41571-022-00719-W" Data-Track = "Click" Data-Label = "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41571-022-00719-w" Data-track-category = "Body text"> Onkological Virotherapy (OVT) himself used to treat their own cancer in stage 3. She has been cancer -free for four years.
by decided by halassy, Self -experiments , it is part of a long list of scientists who are involved in this less noticeable, stigmatized and ethically problematic practice. "It took a brave editor to publish the report," says Halassy.
therapy
The OVT is an emerging area of Cancer treatment , in which viruses attack cancer -like cells and stimulate the immune system to combat. So far, most clinical OVT studies have taken place with advanced metastatic cancer, but in recent years they have increasingly been geared towards earlier stages of illness. An OVT, called T-VEC, was approved in the United States to treat metastatic melanoma, but there is currently no approved OVT funds for the treatment of breast cancer in any stage worldwide.
HALASSY emphasizes that she is not a specialist for OVT, but her expertise in the cultivation and cleaning of viruses in the laboratory gave her the trust to try treatment. She decided to treat her tumor one after the other-a measles virus , followed by a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). Both pathogens are known to infect the cell type from which their tumor comes and have already been used in clinical OVT studies. A measles virus was tested against metastatic breast cancer.
HALASSY already had experience in working with both viruses, both of whom have a good security profile. The measles virus type she chosen is used comprehensively in children's vaccines, and the VSV type causes a maximum of mild flu-like symptoms.
Over a period of two months, a colleague gave her a treatment scheme with a research -grade material that was freshly prepared by Halassy and was injected directly into her tumor. Her oncologists agreed to monitor them during self -treatment so that they could switch to conventional chemotherapy if something went wrong.
The approach seemed effective: in the course of treatment, without serious side effects, the tumor shrank considerably and became softer. He also loosened from the pectoral muscle and skin into which he had grown into, which made surgical removal easier.
The analysis of the tumor after removal showed that it was thoroughly through immune cells, the so -called lymphocytes, which indicates that the OVT had worked as expected and encouraged Halassy's immune system to attack both the viruses and the tumor cells. "An immune response was definitely triggered," says Halassy. After the operation, she received crab medication Trastuzumab for a year.
Stephen Russell, an OVT specialist who leads the virotherapy company Vyriad in Rochester, Minnesota, that Halassy's case indicates that the viral injections helped reduce their tumor and let its invasive edges go back.
However,he does not believe that your experience is groundbreaking because researchers are already trying to use OVT to treat cancer in earlier stages. He is not sure whether someone has tried two viruses one after the other, but says that it is not possible to determine whether this played a role in a study size of n = 1. "To be honest, the new thing is that she did it with a virus that she bred her in her own laboratory," he says.
ethical dilemma
HALASSY felt obliged to publish her results. But she received more than a dozen cancellations of specialist magazines - mainly, she says because the work she wrote with colleagues included self -experiments. "The main concern was always ethical questions," says Halassy. She was particularly determined to hold out after finding an overview that emphasizes the value of self-tests 2 .
that the magazines had concerns, Jacob Sherkow, a researcher for law and medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaid, who examined the ethics of self-testing in research in connection with COVID-19 vaccines.
The problem is not that Halassy did self -experiments, but that the publication of their results could encourage others to reject conventional treatments and try something similar, says Sherkow. People with cancer are particularly susceptible to try on unpleasant treatments. Nevertheless, he points out that it is also important to ensure that the knowledge from self -experiments is not lost. The article emphasizes that self -medication with cancer -fighting viruses should not be the first approach in the event of a cancer diagnosis.
"I think it ultimately falls into the category ethically, but it is not a clear case," says Sherkow and adds that he would have liked that a comment on the ethical perspective that appeared next to the case report.
HALASSY has no regret about her self -treatment or her tireless urge to publish. She does not believe that someone would try to follow her example because the treatment requires a lot of scientific knowledge and know-how. And experience gave her own research a new direction: In September she received funding to examine OVT for the treatment of cancer in pets. "The focus of my laboratory has changed completely due to the positive experience with my self -treatment," she says.
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Forčić, D. et al. Vaccines 12, 958 (2024).
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Hanley, B. P., Bains, W. & Church, G. Rejuv. Res. 22, 31–42 (2019).