The idea for this original experimentation began during my attendance at a youth science forum in Beijing, China in August 2004. Before attending, I chose to be involved in discussions regarding gene therapy and my preparations included extensive research on the topic. I participated in a discussion group that focused on writing a paper and creating a media presentation concerning gene therapeutics. During group dialogue and brainstorming, a fellow group member mentioned the future possibility of “virotherapy” for cancer treatment. I asked for further explanation of this would-be treatment and I became instantly fascinated by it.

I have had a long standing interest in cancer—my last three science fair projects have been on lung cancer (2002 and 2003) and stomach cancer (2004). My initial interest was lung cancer because both of my grandfathers smoked heavily for decades and my paternal grandfather died of cancer in 1997.  My continued interest in cancer is because of its incidence, my fascination of the growth pattern of cancerous cells and the seemingly elusive search for a “cure”.

Upon return from China (in August 2004) I contacted the Centre for Gene Therapeutics at McMaster University with the intention of learning what kind of oncolytic virus research was being conducted and what resources were available.  I was interviewed by Dr. Karen Mossman of the Infectious Diseases Division where I learned of the HSV-1 double-mutant virus, KM110r. This intrigued me, and I inquired about available cell lines. The osteoblast (hFOB) and osteosarcoma (U2OS) caught my attention because even though they were both bone cells, osteoblasts are pre-cursor undifferentiated cells whereas osteosarcomas are fully differentiated cancer cells. After learning about the hFOB temperature sensitive mutation, I felt that such a mutation could be extremely useful in studying the ability or inability KM110r to ignore the differentiation of normal bone cells. I proposed this idea to Dr. Mossman, and it was received extremely well. Additional discussions subsequently took place, and my experimental planning commenced shortly thereafter.