20 Facts You Should Know About Immunotherapy Treatment

FACT #13:Viruses and bacteria can be reprogrammed to help eliminate cancer.

In addition to modified tumor cells, bacteria and viruses can also be equipped with pro-immune / anti-cancer abilities. Several different virus-based strategies exist, the most successful being T-VEC, an oncolytic virus immunotherapy that's already FDA-approved for melanoma.

Another approach–CRS-207—uses de-fanged but living bacteria (L. monocytogenes) to vaccinate patients.

CRS-207 cells are changed in two important ways. First, they have been "double-deleted," which renders them less dangerous to normal cells. Second, they have been loaded with the recipe for a specific protein—mesothelin—that's expressed by several types of cancers. This vaccination is designed to provide the immune system with the information necessary to mount a tumor-specific response.

The therapeutic benefits of CRS-207 in combination with other immunotherapies, including GVAX and checkpoint inhibitors, are currently being evaluated in clinical trials for patients with gastro-esophageal cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and mesothelioma.