Sabrina Gregoire, a student at the University of Ottawa, interviews Dr. John Bell on behalf of her team for the TMM4950 Science Communication Course. Dr. Bell is a Senior Scientist in the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is also the program director of the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium and a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. In this episode, Dr. Bell discusses his research interests and ongoing projects, how cancer-killing viruses work, the advantage of this therapeutic strategy over conventional methods, and its potential for translation into clinical treatment.

Learn more: https://www.ohri.ca/profile/jbell 

Sabrina Gregoire (Voice, Content generation), Sandra Fang (Post-production, Content generation), Marcelle Mackenzie (Content generation), and Floriana Maswa (Content generation). 

1:02 - Research interests and ongoing projects
4:18 - How oncolytic viruses differentiate between healthy and cancerous cells
6:43 - Using the prime + boost technique in anti-cancer vaccines
9:07 - Co-administrating peptide with oncolytic viruses vs. Engineering oncolytic viruses to encode peptide
10:50 - Advantage of oncolytic viruses over conventional methods
12:48 - Clinical translation of oncolytic viruses 

Soundtrack by the Underground Drive. All rights reserved. Listen more: https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/the-underground-drive/1571062779 https://open.spotify.com/artist/4sCJG8TMQyTZ9FDd1JjJmR