Grant Schlauderaff


A Pilot Study To Determine Therapeutic Effect Of Zika Virus-Based Immunotherapy On Brain Tumors In Mice

Zika virus-based immunotherapies have previously been shown to be efficacious adjuvant therapies against rodent brain tumors. This research aims to investigate whether similar therapeutic effects are translated to rodent models of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in the brain. This model represents a clinically significant patient population with cancer that has an overall poor prognosis, demonstrating a need for robust therapies. The treatment includes irradiated Zika virus and tumor cells administered to the animal at incremental time windows to achieve high levels of immune stimulation, especially CD8+ T cell infiltration. In-vivo bioluminescence imaging and survival rates are used to measure the efficacy of treatment. Comparison of these metrics as well as immunohistochemistry to untreated tumor-bearing animals will soon demonstrate the potential for this therapy as treatment for non-brain-derived brain tumors.