Hello! We are Brent Johnston and Roy Duncan, Professors in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Dalhousie University. We have received funding from the Breast Cancer Society of Canada and the QEII Foundation through the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute, to investigate the use of viruses to target advanced and metastatic breast cancer.

Oncolytic viruses are engineered to selectively infect cancer cells by taking advantage of altered signalling pathways that result from cancer cell mutations. Oncolytic viruses not only kill tumour cells directly, they also stimulate the immune system to recognize and target the remaining cancer cells. Dr. Duncan has generated a novel oncolytic virus expressing a Fusion-Associated Small Transmembrane (FAST) protein. This protein helps the virus spread between tumour cells better, leading to greater infection and killing of cultured cancer cells. We are investigating how well FAST oncolytic viruses target breast cancer tumours and whether modified viruses can enhance stimulation of the immune system to target metastatic cancer cells. FAST viruses are also being combined with other therapeutic approaches that boost the function of the immune system further.

We are very excited that our approaches are generating promising results, and hope that his research will help establish new therapies to target advanced and metastatic breast cancer.

We thank the Breast Cancer Society of Canada, the QEll Foundation, and the generous donors for giving us the opportunity to do this work.