Researcher says virus may hold key to breast cancer cure

Doctor at Penn State Hershey can't get funding for research.

Meyers had been toiling in relative anonymity for years, working on the use of a common virus to fight cervical cancer. When he applied his research to breast cancers, he found himself in the spotlight. Penn State's public relations team got the story of his findings out in late September 2011, just before Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The researcher at Penn State Hershey Medical Center excited the breast cancer-fighting community last year with news that some in the press called a "breakthrough" and potential "miracle."

It's been a year of significant steps forward around frustrating roadblocks for Dr. Craig Meyers.

Television and newspaper accounts followed and the story itself went viral on the Internet. Hundreds of women desperate for help contacted Meyers.

But it's a long road from the lab to a cure, and even after the wave of publicity, Meyers is struggling to keep his work funded.

"I've applied everywhere I could" for funding, he said.

Meyers' team at Hershey certainly seems to be on to something.

It started a few years ago as Meyers was inserting the adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV2, into cancer cells. He directed an associate to inject the virus into cancer cells in a petri dish and to let it go for about a week.

Seven days later, the cancer cells were dead — all of them, he said. Meyers thought an incubator had malfunctioned, and tried the test over and over. Each time, the results were the same.

"Basically," he said, "the cells are dying."

Just as important, the healthy tissue was unaffected. "We keep infecting healthy cells and nothing happens," he said.

Meyers moved from testing in petri dishes and last year injected mice with human aggressive triple-negative cancer tumors — the kinds of breast cancer tumors most resistant to treatment. The mice that didn't get the AAV2 injection were too sick to eat, he said. The mice whose tumors he injected with the virus were acting as if they were "perfectly healthy."

The exciting findings made for good stories. But why, if Meyers is finding 100 percent success in killing cancer cells, is funding such a problem?

At least in part, it's the nature of research and limited resources.

In fact, the use of adeno-associated viruses to fight cancer is not new, though better understanding of genetics makes the research more promising.

"The idea and concept of using AAV to target tumors is somewhat 'old new,' " said Dr. Richard J. Samulski, a researcher at the University of North Carolina.

He noted research going back to 1981 showing that AAV inhibited cancer tumor growth in hamsters.

Meyers' work takes that further, and in human cancer cells.

Normal cells are programmed to kill themselves in a process called apoptosis, but cancer cells seem to lose that programming, Meyers said. AAV2 seems to awaken that process in cancer cells, he said.

Meyers' team is still trying to understand why the virus sends a cancer cell into a death spiral. Once the researchers fully understand how elements of AAV2 work on cancer cells, they then can determine how to best deliver the virus. One idea being considered, he said, is creation of a Trojan horse of inert material that would carry the virus and that the body's immune system would leave alone.