Scientist treats her own cancer with lab-grown viruses

 

Virologist Beata Halassy from the University of Zagreb in Croatia successfully treated herself for breast cancer. She injected lab-grown viruses into the tumor, raising questions about the ethics of self-experimentation. 

The cancer, stage 3, was discovered in 2020 in the same place where Halassy, ​​49 years old at the time, underwent a mastectomy - removal of her left breast. Therefore, the scientist could not undergo more chemotherapy sessions , when she decided to study the subject and create her own treatment, the entire experience was published in the journal Vaccines .

The procedure, called oncolytic virotherapy (OVT), is considered new and uses viruses to attack cancer cells, prompting the immune system to fight them. Clinical trials for this type of treatment have been conducted for early-stage cancer. One of these, T-VEC, has been approved in the United States to treat metastatic melanoma . However, there are still no OVT agents approved for the treatment of breast cancer at any stage. 

How was the treatment? 

The scientist emphasizes in her study that she has no experience in OVT, but that her knowledge in the cultivation and purification of viruses in the laboratory gave her the confidence to test the procedure. Halassy used two different types of microorganisms, those from measles and stomatitis, consecutively on her tumor. The pathogens are known to infect the type of cell that gave rise to cancer and have already been used in clinical trials of OVT.   Over the course of two months, a colleague of the virologist administered a regimen of treatments using research materials she had developed, injecting them directly into the tumor. Throughout the process, Halassy was monitored by an oncologist so that, if the treatment failed, she could return to chemotherapy.  

Scientist underwent another treatment

The tumor shrank over time until it broke away from the muscle and skin it was invading, making it easy to remove. After this, the cancer was analyzed and it was found to be infiltrated with immune cells called lymphocytes, causing the urologist's immune system to attack both the viruses and the tumor cells 

  After the surgery, the scientist underwent treatment with the anticancer drug trastuzumab for a year. The experiment gained notoriety not only because it tested two viruses simultaneously, but also because the microorganisms were created by Halassy herself.