Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech professors are currently researching a genetically modified variant of the poultry newcastle disease virus as a cure for cancer.

Elankurmaran Subbiah, assistant professor of virology at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, and his co-investigator Siba K. Samal, associate dean at the at VMRCVM in Maryland are both working on the project.

In February, the Department of Defense granted Subbiah the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program award, an 18-month, $113,250 exploratory grant to conduct further research at the Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases of the VMRCVM at Tech.

Subbiah and his researchers are not the first to study NDV, though he has been studying the virus for about 15 years.

“It is well known that NDV can kill cancer cells,” Subbiah said.

His research, however, varies in that it employs the modification of the virus’ genome so that it targets cancer cells. He began conducting research with variant NDV in 2005.

NDV is an avian disease that does not cause serious harm to humans, merely a mild eye conjunctivitis, Subbiah explained. It is in the same category as the measles and mumps virus in humans.

Subbiah stated that the disease does not infect humans because they have an interferon viral system, which neutralizes the infectivity of NDV in normal, healthy cells. However, in cancer cells, such as prostate cancer cells, the interferon viral system is defective, and NDV can infect and kill the cancer cells by programmed cell death (apoptosis).

NDV is able to fuse to cells with a fusion protein that is unique to the virus. 

With the use of a reverse genetic system, Subbiah and his team of researchers can modify copies of DNA so that they have specific properties. They genetically modified the naturally occurring NDV into a recombinant NDV to specifically target prostate cancer cells.

This variant’s fusion protein now fuses to and kills only prostate cancer cells. The protein targets cells that produce prostate specific antigen, a protease secreted only by prostate cancer cells.

“This protease targeting approach may be used on any type of cancer,” Subbiah said. “You just have to use the specific protease secreted by that type of cancer cell.”

The purpose of the research is to get pre-clinical data so that they have a proof of concept of the fact that they can modify NDV to target PSA and prostate cancer cells.

“We’re using PSA and prostate cancer cells as a model to get the pre-clinical data to show that this approach works,” Subbiah said. “The future goal is to eventually use the approach on every type of cancer.”

After getting a proof of concept, they will write a bigger grant to get more funds to conduct further research and may eventually conduct clinical trials on humans to treat cancer.

“I think this work is a very useful example of the crossover between veterinary medicine and human medicine,” said Jeffery Douglas, communications manager for the VMRCVM at Virginia Tech. “We’re moving increasingly into a world of ‘one medicine’ where human and veterinary medicine are working more closely together now than ever before because of things like zoonotic infectious diseases, which threaten people and animals. Also, the useful applications of information learned in veterinary medicine through animal based research are being applied to human disease conditions.”