Adel Samson

The majority of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) are linked with an underlying oncogenic virus infection, namely HBV (54%) or HCV (31%), which drives oncogenesis via both indirect inflammatory and direct carcinogenic mechanisms. Accordingly, suppression of HBV/HCV infections may improve HCC clinical outcomes, but few patients with HCC worldwide are cured of their hepatitis infections due to cost, compliance and treatment toxicity issues.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown great promise for cancer therapy, but they do not treat all cancers, and neither breast nor brain tumors are usually treatable with these drugs. However, Bourgeois-Daigneault et al. discovered a way to address this for breast cancer, and Samson et al. discovered a way to address this for brain tumors.

Objective Oncolytic viruses (OVs) represent promising, proinflammatory cancer treatments. Here, we explored whether OV-induced innate immune responses could simultaneously inhibit HCV while suppressing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Furthermore, we extended this exemplar to other models of virus-associated cancer.