Scientist speaks at Martin Lecture
By Melinda Harrell
Published in News on April 12, 2015 1:50 AM
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Dr. Santanu Bose
MOUNT OLIVE -- It has been more then 20 years since Dr. Santanu Bose walked the campus of the University of Mount Olive.
He arrived in 1989 from Calcutta, India, as an undergraduate student interested in becoming an accountant.
He had no idea he would come back to the college as a professional speaker for Wednesday's 22nd annual Lorelle F. Martin Lecture at the university.
And he certainly never thought he would discover what could potentially be a life-saving and revolutionary cancer treatment for adults.
But he did.
Dr. Bose is the inventor of a oncolytic virus that kills cancer cells in adult patients, but leaves the normal cells healthy, using the childhood respiratory syncytial virus.
The discovery was serendipitous, said Dr. Bose.
"I am not a cancer biologist," he said.
Dr. Bose's specialty actually involves developing therapies that counteract pneumonia caused by the influenza A virus, but his work with viruses led him to the discovery.
Scientists cultivate viruses using cancer cells because of the cancer cells' ability to grow rapidly. Most viruses kill the cancer cells and form a purified and multiplied research sample.
Bare in mind, however, most viruses attack healthy cells too, Dr. Bose said.
"For growing this virus they have been using cancer cells, and everyone knows that you grow this virus in the cancer cells for convenience, and it is easy to purify the virus, because the cells are dead," Dr. Bose explained how his virus research became so enmeshed in cancer research.
"It is a convenience. People take that as a gold standard in the field."
In his lab at the time at the University of Texas, virus research was being conducted with the RSV virus, but something went wrong.
Dr. Bose's lab personnel were unable to grow the virus.
"So one day, by mistake, one of my lab personnel -- I have six to seven people working in my lab -- they were trying to grow the virus, and they couldn't grow it because after adding the virus the cells were the same," he said.
"Nothing happened to the cells. They came running to me and said, 'There is some mistake. I cannot grow the virus.' And I said, no you are doing something wrong."
Dr. Bose ordered another round of testing but the results were the same. He then directed his lab technician to show him where he was retrieving the cells.
The technician took him to the nitrogen tank where the cells were stored, and Dr. Bose found that those cells were not the cancer cells they typically used for testing, but rather normal, healthy human cells.
"After two days, I think my wife was telling me something, and I wasn't listening to her," he said.
"I was thinking about something else, I was thinking about those cells and I said, 'Wait a minute, does that mean this virus can not infect the normal cells?'"
Dr. Bose tested his theory. He instructed his staff to take the normal cells and the cancer cells, and then inject the virus into the sample and it worked.
The research progressed from there, and he began to collaborate with cancer biologists and tested tumors in mice.
Using human prostate cancer cells the research team injected the cells into the mice and tumors began to form rapidly.
They then injected the virus.
"We initially started off using the prostate tumors, and then we give our virus to those tumors, and lo and behold the tumors just vanished," Dr. Bose said.
The treatment was licensed to CZ Biomed for further development. The pharmaceutical company has conducted clinical trials in Australia and Eastern Europe, where it was effective on human patients.
The next step in the process will be clinical trials in the United States, which will not be too far down the pipeline.
Dr. Bose has no involvement with the clinical trials now, however.
"Those things I cannot inquire because I have conflict because I am the inventor. I cannot know anything about what's going on because it is a conflict for me," Dr. Bose said.
But in 2013, CZ BioMed Corp. released a statement announcing the success of the drug that they have developed, PRO-RVLYSIS, using the Dr. Bose's virus discovery.
CZ BioMed Corp. announced that a prostate patient from Georgia who was receiving the experimental treatment overseas had a 50 percent reduction in prostate tumors.
"This breakthrough confirms our patients can recover faster, with a higher quality of life during treatment," said Calvin Cao, chief executive officer and president of CZ BioMed Corp. said in the 2013 release.
"This is only the beginning."
After the release of the these positive result the company will be pursuing FDA approval to carry on trials in the U.S.
"I hope it helps some people. I get emails from actual families of patients asking me when this technology will be applied," Dr. Bose said.
"Of course, I can't answer them."
Dr. Bose's discovery can have a far-reaching impact on cancer treatments in adults, but he said that discoveries like this are not because of him alone.
He attributes much of his success to Dr. Burkette Raper, president of UMO at the time of Dr. Bose's attendance.
"I would not be where I am today with him," he said.
Dr. Bose also said that much of his success comes from keeping an open mind.
He also said that uncovering new therapies and treatments can only be done through trying to see all the possibilities.
"I believe that in science you have to have an open mind, and if you don't have an open mind you are missing out on a lot of things," Dr. Bose said.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of throwing around ideas to developing technologies, and it can be any technology -- from engineering, science, whatever."