Rabbit virus could help cancer sufferers - researchers

Calicivirus was illegally introduced to New Zealand to deplete wild rabbit numbers. File photo / Martin Sykes

A new "highly promising" vaccine therapy, derived from rabbit calicivirus disease (RCD), could offer hope for colorectal cancer sufferers, according to University of Otago researchers.

This therapy uses harmless viral shells derived from RCD, also known as rabbit haemorrhagic disease, to deliver immunising tumour proteins and the same approach could also be applied to a wide range of human cancers, researchers say. Sarah Young, an immunologist in the university pathology department, one of the O-Zone group of award-winning young Otago University scholars, told the Otago Daily Times the cancer-related research, involving virus-like particles (VLP), was very promising.

"This therapy is like gold in our hands. It's worked as well if not better than any other therapy I've ever seen."

Mice with induced tumours usually lived no longer than 40 days, but 60 per cent of them lived for 80 days or more after a single dose of the VLP vaccine, the researchers found.

About 80 per cent of mice receiving a preventive dose lived for 80 days or more after a tumour was induced.

Ethical approval has been granted to conduct laboratory tests this year involving cells removed from the body, to see if the VLP system can induce an enhanced immune response in human cells and human clinical trials could be held late next year.

The new vaccine approach offered potentially significant advantages over some forms of traditional cancer therapy, such as chemotherapy.

Inducing the immune system to attack only tumour cells was a much more selective approach.

- NZPA