The speed of light, made up of particles called photons, is the fastest in the universe at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second).
The infinitely slower speed of lysis, that is the speed at which cancer cell membranes rupture or lyse during infection with lead EpicentRx adenovirus, AdAPT-001, is about 40 hours give or take. AdAPT-001, which, because it is minimally modified replicates almost as fast as wild-type or native adenovirus, carries a transforming growth factor-beta trap (TGF-β) trap to neutralize the immunosuppressive cytokine, TGF-β.
In a process called stimulated emission, it is possible to copy or “clone” photons from atoms or molecules. This is the principle that underlies the action of a LASER (Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission Radiation).
Somewhat analogously if you try really, really hard to make the analogy work, AdAPT-001 clones or copies itself so prolifically during infection of cancer cells that these cancer cells lyse or rupture from the accumulation of AdAPT-001 viral particles — this behavior is not LASER-like but VASER (Virus Amplified by Stimulated Emission with Rupture)-like.
The significance of VASER is that the virus releases or “emits” so much of the TGF-β trap, which it carries and expresses during lysis along with cytokines, danger signals, and cancer cell antigens that immune cells must mobilize (and hopefully respond) against the tumor.
Call them VASER-guided or VASER-focused immune cells.
In case you were wondering, we were less than LASER-guided/focused when we wrote this post, which all told took about 40 hours, factoring in all the many distractions and interruptions that competed for attention.
Or, in other words, we wrote it at the speed of lysis.