He discovers a therapy and successfully tests it against his tumor

Virologist Beata Halassy – Ansa

She successfully cured her cancer using two viruses she grew in the laboratory. The story of a Croatian virologist, the 49-year-old Beata Halassy, ​​reported by the magazine, is causing a stir all over the world Naturewho took the “do it yourself” route to fight the disease. «Something not to be imitated», warns, however, the protagonist, presenting her case on the website of the scientific newspaper Vaccineand raising a heated ethical debate regarding self-experimentation.

The facts: in 2020 Halassy, ​​who is also a researcher at the University of Zagreb, discovered that she had breast cancer. It is a recurrence of the disease, the second, formed in the same place where, years earlier, she underwent a mastectomy. The prospect of returning to fight against that disease, and of undergoing new cycles of chemotherapy, prove to be a particularly challenging path, which he no longer wants to face. That’s not why he gives up. Indeed, she decides to develop an “unconventional” path, as she defines it. She began studying the scientific literature using her skills as a virologist. Thus, like a seamstress, she designs a treatment for her specific condition – called oncolytic virotherapy – which is only today starting to take its first steps in the field of promising trials.

This treatment uses viruses both to attack tumor cells and to stimulate the immune system to attack the tumor. Clinical research so far based on this technique, initially conducted only on metastatic diseases, is now also considering the earliest stages of tumors. One of these clinical trials, for example, is underway in the United States on cases of melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer. However, there are no tests for breast cancer.

Halassy experiments with the technique. He is both doctor and patient. And he unleashes two viruses against his illness, one after the other: those of measles and vesicular stomatitis, on which he worked in the past and both used in the experiments launched at the time. The preparation is directly injected into your tumor for two months. A period in which some oncologists monitor the situation to intervene with chemotherapy if things go wrong. The tumor progressively shrinks without serious side effects, until it can be removed surgically. Then, the researcher is treated for a year with a monoclonal antibody. The analysis of the tumor tissue, infiltrated by immune cells, the lymphocytes, shows that the therapy worked. For four years, the tumor has shown no signs of recovery.

After a dozen rejections from scientific journals, Hallasy publishes his results. Despite the controversy, the researcher has no regrets about her choice and believes it is unlikely that anyone will try to imitate her because the therapy she discovered in her laboratory requires considerable preparation. Having said that science will carry out all the necessary checks in view of a possible cure, the virologist has in the meantime obtained funding to experiment with her therapy. We will start with animals and, if the answers are those expected by researchers, we will move on to humans.