CBS 60 minutes few weeks ago has brought attention to virus-based cancer treatment.

Brad Thompson, the CEO of Oncolytics Biotech, was very excited about it but he knew that there is much more to do when it comes to treating the disease.

The episode focused on an engineered polio virus developed at Duke University to treat deadly form of brain cancer called giloblastoma.

Oncolytics Biotect was founded in 1998 on the discovery about cancer killing property of reovirus made at the University of Calgary.

The company when it was conducting early Phase I trials of Reolysin went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Reolysin is treating head and neck cancer with reovirus based therapy.

Thompson was able to associate himself with his as he knows how hard it is to bring the treatment to market.

Reolysin trails continuing to be disappointing, the company’s shares is now 75 cents per share.

Thompson is very optimistic about reovirus and other immunotherapy treatments like the one for polio being trailed at Oncology.

There are many companies in the field and the research is going good even though there are many disappointments but researchers are learning from them and knowledge is expanding.

Reolysin approach used by Oncolytic’s is engineered to target tumor cells or boost the immune system innate cancer killing abilities. Reovirus spares the normal cells and replicate in tumor cells that contain genetic mutations in a pathway called Ras, which are the abnormalities found in two-third of all cancers.

Once the reovirus starts replicating it kills the tumor cells and travels to nearby tumors and continues the cycle.

But further research discovered that reovirus power is not so much to kill the tumor cells but it will interact with the immune system that kills the cancer cells.

The problem in the neck and head cancer is that the immune system is not accessible to the tumors in head and neck as it accessible to others.