Research Projects

Cancer is a major global health issue, with nearly 10 million deaths reported in 2020 alone. There is a need for safer and less expensive anticancer therapeutics, including oncolytic viruses that can kill cancerous cells without side effects, at low treatment costs, and with very low dose requirements. Oncolytic viruses, such as Talimogene laherparepvec and Newcastle disease virus (NDV), have shown promising results in preclinical models of various cancer types. Preliminary data suggests that the W protein of NDV, an accessory viral protein, localizes in the nucleus and induces apoptosis. The aim of this proposal is to study if the W protein could define a strain's oncolytic potency, which can have a direct clinical correlation to therapeutic dosing requirements. The researchers plan to identify the most apoptotic W protein sequence and explore the delivery route(s) to achieve the highest oncolytic potency. There are six major proteins expressed by NDV strains, and only about 50% of the strains were predicted with nuclear localization of W protein. Only certain strains of NDV are oncolytic in nature, and the mechanism for which is not completely known yet. The hypothesis is that the W protein could play a major role in determining the oncolytic potential of a NDV strain. To test this hypothesis, the researchers plan to overexpress the W protein sequence showing the highest apoptotic potential in a recombinant NDV engineered by reverse genetics system and inject it into a tumor xenograft model in SCID mice.