Like many original ideas, Matthias Gromeier's notion that polio might
kill cancer tumors was met with disdain. But two decades later, the
use of the virus known for crippling and killing millions is showing
promise against one of the most virulent forms of cancer,
glioblastoma brain tumors. Two patients Scott Pelley meets in the
first clinical trial for the treatment have been declared cancer free
by doctors. Pelley's report, in which 60 Minutes cameras spent 10
months capturing patients receiving the therapy and learning of its
effects, will be broadcast on Sunday, March 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I got a range of responses, from crazy to you're lying, most people
just thought it was too dangerous," says Gromeier, a molecular
biologist, when he started pushing his idea to attack tumors with the
polio virus. One of those naysayers was Dr. Henry Friedman, a
neuro-oncologist who is the deputy director of the Brain Tumor Center
at Duke University.
"I thought he was nuts," Friedman tells
Pelley. "I really thought he was using a weapon that produced
paralysis." That was 15 years ago. Today, after research, animal
trials and now this human clinical trial, he is more than optimistic.
"This, to me, is the most promising therapy I have seen in my career,
period." Friedman has been researching a cure for glioblastoma for
more than 30 years.
Gromeier's research yielded a genetically
modified polio virus that could be used safely in animals and now, it
seems, in humans. He explains how it works. "All human cancers, they
develop...protective measures that make them invisible to the immune
system and this is precisely what we try to reverse with our virus," he
says. "We are actually removing this protective shield, enabling the
immune system to come in and attack."
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