Engineered virus to make triple negative breast cancer cells susceptible to radioactive iodine

While it is still too early to make any claims of a cure - having not even proceeded to human clinical trials yet - the researchers behind the method are hopeful because it basically combines known cures for two other diseases: the virus (vaccinia virus GLV-1h153) is apparently very similar to the one used to help eradicate smallpox, while the protein the breast cancer cells are made to express (hNIS) is the same one that is responsible for making many thyroid cancers treatable using a small dose of radioactive iodine. http://bit.ly/1o13oXi

Image: A breast cancer cell, photographed by a scanning electron microscope. NCI/Wikimedia Commons