{"id":29846,"date":"2016-11-02T16:57:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T20:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=29846"},"modified":"2016-11-02T16:57:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T20:57:03","slug":"synthetic-virus-created-to-treat-cancer-in-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=29846","title":{"rendered":"Synthetic Virus Created to Treat Cancer in Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Running dog skeleton (Calsidyrose, Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2 November 2016. Two companies partnering with Auburn University developed a synthetic virus to find and destroy tumor cells in a type of bone cancer in dogs. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the agreement between synthetic gene company Gen9<\/a> in Cambridge, Massachusetts, design systems developer Autodesk Inc. in San Rafael, California, and Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine in Alabama were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

The research team created a synthetic version of canine adenovirus type 2<\/a>, or CAV2, a virus usually associated with hepatitis in dogs. In this case, the synthetic CAV-2 virus is designed as an oncolytic virus<\/a> that finds and attacks cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells and tissue intact. The genome in the organism is believed to be the longest in a functional virus synthesized for cancer research, with about 34,000 base pairs of nucleic acids. The human genome<\/a>, by comparison, has about 3 billion base pairs.<\/p>\n

The technology<\/a> provided by Gen9 in this project makes it possible to eventually produce synthetic therapeutic viruses tailored for specific patients. Gen9 offers customized gene synthesis and is developing a library of synthesized proteins and antibodies. One of the 4 year-old company’s founders is George Church<\/a>, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and serial entrepreneur<\/a>. In August 2016, as reported in Science & Enterprise<\/a>, Church and colleagues, including those from Gen9, developed a synthetic E. coli<\/em> bacteria genome with redundant DNA components removed.<\/p>\n

Autodesk Inc. develops software for industrial and scientific design tasks, with the company’s BioNano Research Group<\/a> contributing its expertise to the project. The research group offers an open-source Genetic Constructor<\/a> online package that applies principles of computer-aided design for biological systems and synthetic DNA.<\/p>\n

A research team led by Bruce Smith<\/a> at Auburn’s veterinary medical college plans to test the synthetic Cav-2 virus in a clinical trial as a treatment for canine osteosarcoma<\/a>, the most common type of bone cancer in dogs with a median survival time of 7 months to 1 year, depending on the type of treatment. Smith, Director of the Auburn University’s Research Initiative in Cancer<\/a>, says in a Gen9 statement, “The technology to create a new virus by synthesizing it is a huge leap, but the ability to then make a customized virus tailored to the specific needs of each patient will be transformative.”<\/p>\n

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