The race to find a cure for cancer continues among a number of vectors, the better known of which are chemotherapy and gene therapy. But there are other methods being developed, including oncolytic viruses.

The Seneca Valley Virus is a naturally-occurring (and untweaked) virus which has been shown in clinical trials to be remarkably effective at treating some of the more nasty human cancer types while presenting no threat to the human body itself.

The biggest upside of oncolytic viral treatments is that they can be used on cancers for which there is no viable surgical procedure, though their ability to travel through the bloodstream and work on metastatic cases as well as local ones is good news too. [image from Wikimedia Commons]