Scientists adapt common cold virus to attacks cancer cells but leave healthy tissue unharmed

By Daniel Martin
Last updated at 8:20 AM on 22nd May 2009

Experts have developed a virus which they hope could be used to target cancer cells.

The specially-adapted bug was shown to attack liver tumours in mice but leaves healthy tissue intact.

The scientists, however, warn it could take at least two years before the technique can be tested on humans.

Oxford University scientists modified a common cold bug called an adenovirus, that typically causes chest infections, to enable it to deliver genetic therapy to tumours without poisoning the liver.

The changes enabled the virus to keep its natural infectious characteristics to replicate in the lab animals' cancer cells and kill them.

But for the first time the virus was also recognised and destroyed by healthy mouse liver cells, so it was no longer toxic.

Modified naturally-occurring viruses are already used in vaccines for measles and mumps.