Currently available cancer treatments, such as chemotherapeutics, targeted inhibitors or immunotherapies, are not capable of fully eradicating cancers and are limited by toxicities and side effects.
Dr. Lin aims to take a new approach to cancer treatment by engineering a virus that will infect and replicate specifically in cancer cells, triggering their destruction. This strategy aims not to suppress oncogenic signaling, but to use it as a trigger for a smart biological therapy. If he succeeds, progress will be made toward developing a much-needed "magic bullet" against cancer.