11th USIAS Fellows Seminar - Derived plant-viruses and cancer treatment

Tobacco mosaic virus (Tmv)

Manfred Heinlein, Fellow 2012, Institute of Plant Molecular Biology

Plant viruses are all around us and do not cause diseases in humans. Particles of those viruses can be mass-produced in plants or in vitro assembled and they are malleable to both chemical and genetic manipulation, allowing them to be tailored to a desired size and therapeutic use, without having the detrimental effects that non-plant viruses can cause.

Manfred Heinlein is currently working on the Tobacco mosaic virus (Tmv) in order to create plant virus-derived nanocarriers for the targeted and highly concentrated delivery of anti-cancer agents to cancer cells and to test their therapeutic activity against cancer in cell culture and tumor mouse models. During the seminar, he will present progesses in his research project and the potential applications for humans.