Dr. John Bell, whose research has inspired tremendous hope in the fight against cancer, is the recipient of more than $2 million to be the lead investigator in a new project with oncolytic viruses – viruses that kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched.
His work has been featured in leading publications and was highlighted by the American Cancer Society. The project, funded by the Terry Fox Foundation, aims at uniting several Canadian research groups, who are developing cancer-killing viruses. By working together, the groups from London, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa hope to maximize their results and provide potential treatments to patients more quickly.
Dr. Bell and his research team found that the virus effectively attacks and destroys cancer cells in mice while leaving other cells untouched. Experiments conducted on human cells in the laboratory had equally promising results.
Dr. Bell is a scientist affiliated with the Ottawa Health Research Institute, a career scientist with the Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre and a professor in the Department of Medicine and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine. He was named third most influential person in Canada in an online readers’ poll published in Maclean’s magazine in 2003.
Read about cancer research in the March 2004 issue of MedScene (pdf)
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