Oncolytics Biotech Inc. said researchers have published a research paper entitled "Inflammatory Tumour Cell Killing by Oncolytic Reovirus for the Treatment of Melanoma" in which the investigators showed that reovirus effectively kills and replicates in both human melanoma cell lines and fresh tumour.

Prof Alan Melcher and his research group at St. James's University Hospital in Leeds, UK demonstrated that reovirus melanoma killing is more potent than, and distinct from, chemotherapy or radiotherapy-induced cell death. They concluded that reovirus is suitable for clinical testing in melanoma.

"Our ongoing preclinical work indicates that reovirus has a number of mechanisms by which it kills melanoma cell lines and tumours," said Dr. Brad Thompson, president and CEO, Oncolytics. "This most recent work provides additional support to our upcoming phase II melanoma clinical trial with the US National Cancer Institute".