“Despite many decades of effort and numerous human trials, only one virus that is designed to kill cancers has ever been approved by regulators in the US and Europe. But a second could get the green light at the end of the month, after getting good results for treating melanoma, a particularly serious type of skin cancer.

A genetically modified herpes virus, called RP1, was injected into the tumours of 140 people with advanced melanoma for whom standard treatments had failed. The participants also took a drug called nivolumab, which is designed to boost the immune response to tumours…

In 30 per cent of those treated, tumours shrank, including those that were not injected. In half of these cases, the tumours disappeared altogether.”

From New Scientist.