A therapy using the polio virus to attack glioblastoma has been granted breakthrough status by the Food and Drug Administration. The early results have proven so successful that the FDA wanted to speed the treatment to the market.
The treatment is the creation of Matthias Gromeier, MD, who re-engineered the virus. The modified polio virus isn’t able to reproduce in normal cells, which prevents it from causing paralysis or death. But, it can reproduce in cancer cells where it poisons those cells and causes the immune system to notice the cancer.