Definitely a really cool project! I have had the privilege to collaborate with an immuno-oncology group at Dana Farber a few years back, and they're perpetually on the top of their game, and at the edge of human knowledge. Based off of this article, there is a lot more work to be done, though:<p>"But statistics — not anecdotes — rule over drug approvals. In 2005, regulators in China approved an oncolytic adenovirus called H101 to treat head-and-neck cancer, after evidence showed that the treatment could shrink tumours. Those trials stopped short of assessing improvements in patient survival — a measure often required for FDA approval. Since then, a medical-tourism industry has built up in China for people who cannot get the therapy in their home countries.<p>Then, in May this year, a team supported by biotechnology giant Amgen of Thousand Oaks, California, published promising results from a large clinical trial of T-VEC (R. H. Andtbacka et al. J. Clin. Oncol. 33, 2780–2788; 2015). The virus both shrank tumours in people with advanced melanoma and extended patient survival by a median of 4.4 months. Yet statistically, survival benefits fell just a hair’s breadth of significance. “That raised the question, ‘Well, what is statistical significance? Is this an active agent or not?’” Russell says."<p>It's possible that a more immunogenic (eliciting immune response) virus would have better results against cancers. Of course, this means that it would also hurt the patient more. I'm sure they know this already.<p>Though I'm biased, I think that given the current state of viral engineering, immunotherapy (immune cell gene-engineering and transplantation)is a better way of getting at cancer for now-- it's rapidly being proven in the clinic and the lab. I can see a time 10 years from now where we'll be able to engineer certain viruses to be powerfully oncolytic, but for now I think the problems are specificity of targeting (you only want to kill tumor cells) and the inability for prototype oncolytic viruses to infiltrate the tumor microenvironment. The infiltration problem isn't a hard dead end, nor is it a problem unique to viral therapies, but a couple of the bleeding edge immunotherapies and even older radiotherapies and chemotherapies can pierce into the tumor microenvironment with no problem.<p>Though I expect immunotherapy to beat them to the punch, I can completely see oncolytic viruses joining the combination regimen that is the standard of care, alongside surgery, chemo and radiotherapy, provided that they show a more concrete improvement in survival rate/length.