Waging war on cancer

BATON ROUGE, LA. — Herpes virus is the next recruit in the war on cancer.

Researchers at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine engineered a herpes virus that may help fight breast cancer, which accounts for one in three cancers diagnosed in American women.

This herpes virus, explains Dr. Konstantin "Gus" Kousoulas, an LSU professor of virology in the Department of Pathological Sciences and director of the Division of Biotechnology & Molecular Medicine, was engineered to replicate selectively in cancer cells, not normal cells.

In other words, the herpes virus is oncolytic. The next step, Kousoulas says, is to see if the virus can be engineered to boost the immune system and prevent tumors from metastasizing.