AZAD LAB for Synthetic Biology
Université de Sherbrooke, Faculté de Médecine et des Sciences de la Santé,
Département de microbiologie et d'infectiologie
Bioengineering Viruses to Create Safer and more Effective Oncolytic Virus
Oncolytic Viruses:
Current cancer therapies for metastatic disease have limited efficacy and high toxicity and thus novel approaches to treatment are sought. Viruses have many characteristics which make them desirable as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancer including their ability to infect cells and replicate, induce cell death, release viral particles and spread through human tissues. We have shown that a variety of viruses patients undergoing OV therapy that our viruses can infect and disrupt tumour vasculature. The affect of OV therapy on all aspects of tumour microenvironment (e.g. support cells, immune infiltrates) is under investigation.
What we do
Our research program is directed towards the identification and characterization of novel cancer killing therapeutic viruses that selectively infect and kill cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells and tissues unharmed.
Selected Publications:
3. CRISPR-mediated rapid arming of poxvirus vectors enables facile generation of the novel immunotherapeutic STINGPOX, Jack T Whelan, Ragunath Singaravelu, Fuan Wang, Adrian Pelin, Levi A Tamming, Giuseppe Pugliese, Nikolas T Martin, Mathieu Crupi, Julia Petryk, Bradley Austin, Xiaohong He, Ricardo Marius, Jessie Duong, Carter Jones, Emily E. F. Brown, Nouf Alluqmani, Andrew Chen, Stephen Boulton, Michael Huh, Matthew Y Tang, Zaid Taha, Elena Scut, Jean-Simon Diallo, Taha Azad, Brian D Lichty, Carolina S Ilkow and John Cameron Bell, Frontiers in Immunology, 2023.
2. Virally programmed extracellular vesicles sensitize cancer cells to oncolytic virus and small molecule therapy, Marie-Eve Wedge, Victoria A Jennings, Mathieu JF Crupi, Joanna Poutou, Taylor Jamieson, Adrian Pelin, Giuseppe Pugliese, Christiano Tanese de Souza, Julia Petryk, Brian J Laight, Meaghan Boileau, Zaid Taha, Nouf Alluqmani, Hayley E McKay, Larissa Pikor, Sarwat Tahsin Khan, Taha Azad, Reza Rezaei, Bradley Austin, Xiaohong He, David Mansfield, Elaine Rose, Emily EF Brown, Natalie Crawford, Almohanad Alkayyal, Abera Surendran, Ragunath Singaravelu, Dominic G Roy, Gemma Migneco, Benjamin McSweeney, Mary Lynn Cottee, Egon J Jacobus, Brian A Keller, Takafumi N Yamaguchi, Paul C Boutros, Michele Geoffrion, Katey J Rayner, Avijit Chatterjee, Rebecca C Auer, Jean-Simon Diallo, Derrick Gibbings, Benjamin R tenOever, Alan Melcher, John C Bell, Carolina S Ilkow, Nature Communications, 2022.
1. Oncolytic virus driven T-cell-based combination immunotherapy platform for colorectal cancer, Mathieu JF Crupi, Zaid Taha, Thijs JA Janssen, Julia Petryk, Stephen Boulton, Nouf Alluqmani, Anna Jirovec, Omar Kassas, Sarwat T Khan, Sydney Vallati, Emily Lee, Ben Zhen Huang, Michael Huh, Larissa Pikor, Xiaohong He, Ricardo Marius, Bradley Austin, Jessie Duong, Adrian Pelin, Serge Neault, Taha Azad, Caroline J Breitbach, David F Stojdl, Michael F Burgess, Scott McComb, Rebecca Auer, Jean-Simon Diallo, Carolina S Ilkow, John Cameron Bell, Frontiers in Immunology, 2022.
