Noriyuki Kasahara, MD, PhD: Finding a Better Way
Years Funded: 2017-2020
RRV for Immunogenic Suicide Gene Therapy and Checkpoint Inhibition in Glioma
Noriyuki Kasahara, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Brain Tumor Center are exploring how to use genetically engineered viruses (known as vectors) to infect cancer cells. Once inside the cells, “suicide genes” delivered by these vectors enable a chemotherapy drug to be generated inside the infected cancer cell itself, which also in turn activates the immune system to attack and destroy glioblastoma and other brain tumors with very few adverse side effects.