Could the E-coli bug beat prostate cancer?

by MARTYN HALLE, Daily Mail

Doctors are on the verge of a breakthrough against prostate cancer, using the E-coli food poisoning bacteria to target tumours and kill them.

E-coli has been linked to serious food poisoning outbreaks, but by genetically altering one strain of the virus, British scientists have made it harmless to healthy body cells yet lethal to cancer cells.

In effect, the scientists have succeeded in 'turning off' the E-coli bacteria's poisoning effects until it is inside the cancer.

'It is a brilliant bit of engineering,' says Dr Nick James, the oncologist co-ordinating trials of the therapy at hospitals in the UK, including Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, the research centre involved.

'The treatment is being aimed at men who have been treated for prostate cancer but have had a local recurrence of the disease.

'Surgery is often the only option because many of these patients are resistant to drugs. But with surgery, the nerves responsible for causing an erection can be damaged.

'Using the gene therapy treatment, we can preserve patients' ability to have sex and also hopefully eradicate the cancer.'

Doctors use the adenovirus - a form of the common cold - to deliver the E-coli bacteria to the cancer cells.

'It is only when it gets into the cancer cells that the bacteria is released by a genetically encoded trigger,' says Dr James.

Trials are also under way to use the same therapy on patients suffering from liver cancer, kidney cancer and head and neck tumours.

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