Excitement Builds as Electrical Pulses Prove Potent Against Advanced Skin Cancers

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- We have come a long way in the use of electricity. In ancient Greece, Thales of Miletus discovered he could produce electrical sparks by rubbing amber with a cloth. In 1746, Pieter van Musschenbroek invented the Leyden jar to store static electricity. Two years after that, William Watson proposed the ideas of electric currents and electric circuits. Michael Faraday discovered that moving a magnet back and forth inside a wire coil could generate electricity, enabling him to build the first electric motor as well as a generator and transformer. Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning was electricity, and Thomas Edison propounded the idea of generating large amounts of electrical power and distributing it by wires into homes and businesses. Today's innovators, like Elon Musk who has pushed innovation with the Tesla electric sports car and the Hyperloop, a concept solar-powered high-speed train, continue to explore the power of electrical current. 

In medicine, a new kind of electricity-enabled advance is being researched; this one is designed to treat cancer. Called ImmunoPulse, the system harnesses the power of electroporation, a therapeutic approach that uses short, intense electric pulses to open pores in the membrane of tumor cells. This allows the delivery of drugs—such as the immune stimulating agent DNA IL-12—into the interior of the cancerous cells and throughout the body. 

San Diego-based OncoSec Medical Inc., the developer of ImmunoPulse, is focusing on advanced-stage skin cancers: metastatic melanoma, Merkel cell carcinoma and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. 

OncoSec has completed enrollment of its Phase II metastatic melanoma trial, which is being conducted at the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the University of Washington Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica. The company is also working with the University of Washington in a Phase II Merkel cell carcinoma trial and with UCSF for a Phase II cutaneous T-cell lymphoma trial. 

For more information on OncoSec, visit http://oncosec.com/. For more information on enrolling in the company's clinical trials, visit http://oncosec.com/index.php/oms/clinical-trials/.

Contact:   Laura Radocaj, Dian Griesel Int'l.   212.825.3210

Read more news from OncoSec

SOURCE OncoSec Medical Inc.

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers

9k+
Digital Media
Outlets

270k+
Journalists
Opted In

GET STARTED