BioCanRx Scientific Director Dr. John Bell and network investigator Dr. Carolina Ilkow are using their work in cancer immunotherapy at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute to help pioneer a vaccine for COVID-19.
Ilkow, Bell and their research teams are using every tool in their immunotherapy arsenal to try to provoke an immune response to COVID-19. Rather than trying to engineer an immune-stimulating reaction for the typical target of cancer, they are honing in on a way to get the body to respond to COVID instead. They are doing this by engineering the original cancer-fighting viruses “so that they produce small pieces of the COVID-19 virus”.
You can read more about how this research is supporting the global pandemic effort here: http://www.ohri.ca/newsroom/story/view/1225?l=en
Below are a few news articles that explore this research further:
Ottawa Citizen: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-scientists-turn-attention-to-covid-19-vaccine-with-help-from-fast-grant/
Ottawa Matters – 1310 News: https://www.ottawamatters.com/local-news/ottawa-researchers-attempting-to-repurpose-cancer-fighting-viruses-for-covid-19-vaccine-2289605
CTV Ottawa: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-researchers-eye-cancer-fighting-viruses-in-search-for-covid-19-vaccine-1.4916110
Science Rendezvous: http://www.sciencerendezvous.ca/2020/05/01/cancer-fighting-viruses-part-of-the-search-for-a-covid-19-vaccine/