Latest News | Humane Genomics

The Science of Engineering Viruses

May 5, 2024 • Chad Moles

Introduction Have you ever wondered how viruses are made in a lab setting? Although it may sound like complex wizardry, the process is quite approachable with a bit of molecular biology under your belt. This blog post will try to explain the process of engineering viruses, making it hopefully understandable to anyone curious about the [...]

Reflections from AACR: The evolving landscape of Oncolytic Viral Therapies

April 22, 2024 • Chad Moles

Rupsa and Chad presenting our poster We recently attended the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference. It’s the largest cancer research gathering in the U.S., and we were thrilled to present our latest results and learn from peers. Here’s a snapshot of the current developments in oncolytic viral therapies (OVTs). The State of Oncolytic [...]

Join Us at AACR 2024: Celebrating Progress in Cancer Research

April 3, 2024 • pete

We’re thrilled to announce that we’re returning to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting for the second time! It’s an honor to be invited back to this prestigious event where we’ll be showcasing our groundbreaking work in the field of cancer therapeutics. AACR is the largest gathering of cancer researchers, clinicians, survivors, [...]

Engineering selective infection

December 11, 2023 • pete

How viruses infect cells is key to developing safe oncolytic viral therapies. In this post, we discuss how viruses can be engineered to target cancer cells. The infection process begins when a virus recognizes and attaches to a host cell. This attachment is typically mediated by viral proteins known as glycoproteins, which specifically bind to [...]

Regulating viral replication using RNA aptazymes

August 28, 2023 • Chad Moles

The biggest problem in cancer therapeutics is selectivity. Using oncolytic viral therapies, high selectivity can be achieved using the combination of selective infection and selective replication. Here, we want to address selective replication. For DNA viruses, this can be accomplished with promoters to control transcription and genome replication. However, for RNA viruses, this does not [...]

Announcing our first publication

May 8, 2023 • Chad Moles

We are thrilled to announce the publication of Humane Genomics’ first article. We contributed a chapter to the International Review of Cell and Molecular Biology (IRCMB). This is a book series by Elsevier, as part of a special issue on Viral Vectors in Cancer Immunotherapy. Our review, titled “Rational selection of an ideal oncolytic virus [...]

AACR poster session review

May 1, 2023 • pete

We were thrilled to present a poster of our work at AACR. It is one of the biggest conferences on cancer research, with 22,000 visitors. To get accepted, we had to write an abstract, which was reviewed, and we needed to be sponsored by an existing member. For us, this was Dr. Sanjeev Vasudevan, whom [...]

Presenting at AACR

April 10, 2023 • pete

We are excited to announce we are presenting at the AACR annual meeting for the first time. AACR is the American Association for Cancer Research and its meeting is the largest in the world of cancer research. Last year, over 20,000 scientists, clinicians, and other health care professionals, and survivors and patient advocates from around [...]

Introduction – Brenda

March 9, 2023 • pete

Brenda Ho Q: Tell me a bit about yourself Hello! My name is Brenda and I grew up in Montgomery County Maryland. I spent a lot of my weekends visiting DC going to museums and visiting monuments nearby. The National Museum of Natural History is where I first fell in love with research and it [...]

Rational Design of Oncolytic Viruses

February 23, 2023 • pete

In this post, we give an overview of the history of using viruses as potential treatment for cancer. We also outline the challenges a great viral therapy needs to overcome. Last, we review our approach to rationally design and engineer safe and effective oncolytic viruses. History and current state Since the middle of the last [...]