Advances in Microbiology

Last Updated: 2026-09-28

This was an essay I wrote for one of my biology classes. This was an assignment I enjoyed putting together for a couple different reasons so I wanted to share it.

Why am I Sharing This?

First, it’s evidence that I have greatly improved my writing ability. I remember in high school an essay this size would feel like a monumental task that would either take days to accomplish or be a rushed and poor work. This time, it was rushed and half decent. I was able to do find journal articles, parse their claims, and write a small piece within just two or three hours. Over the last year, I’ve really started to enjoy the writing process. I feel like I think and express myself more clearly than I ever have before, and that is empowering.

Second, this is the first time I remember taking the time to double check one of the video essays I’ve watched. I originally watched the video simply because it came from Kurzgesagt, one of my favorite science communication channels. At first viewing, the video felt pretty shallow on details with lots of vague adjectives compared to previous videos (I am not sure if that’s a legitimate criticism or if I’m only now noticing it). Reviewing their sources made me realize the shallow writing style was not for lack of information, but to make the content more approachable. Having read the original sources, they definitely need interpretation. I’d like to think I handle technical information well given my engineering education, but medical studies are a different breed.

I might write more articles like this, where I respond to news stories, video essays, or opinions I hear and take a deeper look. It probably won’t happen often, but It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

The Original Prompt

What are some of the recent advances within microbiology, genetics, or anything related to these subjects? Find credible sources, and take the opportunity to delve into real-world applications of the topics we’ve learned so far.

Submission

As a civil engineering major, I know very little about microbiology let alone what recent advances have been made in the field. Fortunately, one of the science communication channels I follow on YouTube introduced me to the concept of using viruses as a cancer treatment. This style of treatment is known as virotherapy. The video walked through the experience of virologist, Beata Halassy, who developed her own virotherapy for her aggressive breast cancer and published her findings in 2024 (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell). Finding a cure for stage III cancer that avoided many of the negative symptoms of chemotherapy sounded like a miracle to my untrained ears. However, virotherapy is not a new technology; the real genius of Dr. Halassy is not in developing virotherapy itself but in deciding to apply virotherapy before exhausting chemotherapy.

First, we must understand how virotherapy works. In class, Dr. O’Neill taught about viruses. Viruses are non-living things that can attach to living cells and inject the living cells with genetic material. That genetic material will cause the living cell to create more viruses until the cell dies and releases all the newly formed viruses. Cancer cells are particularly vulnerable to viral infections because the very mutations that make a cell cancerous also diminish the cells’ ability to defend against viruses (Matveeva and Chumakov). Immune cells can detect cell death and viral debris; as the cancer cells die to viral infection, a patient’s immune system is better able to attack the cancer directly accelerating the cancer’s death (Workenhe and Mossman). Virotherapy is the deliberate use and development of anti-cancer viruses known as oncolytic viruses and has been studied since the 1800’s (Bifulco et al.). Oncolytic viruses (OV) and similar technologies can help to treat cancers that traditional treatments cannot such as inoperable tumors, multidrug resistant tumors, immune resistant tumors, or metastatic tumors (Ma et al.).

Most virotherapies are used with patients who have already tried traditional methods of cancer treatment and have unresponsive, advanced stages of cancer. The weakened immune system and general poor health of these patients limits how effective virotherapy could be if it was supported by a healthy immune system (Forčić et al.). Rather than treat her recurrent tumor with chemotherapy, which would weaken her immune system, Dr. Halassy opted to develop her own virotherapy and treat herself while being monitored by her oncologists (Forčić et al.). After two months of therapy, Dr. Halassy’s tumor had been greatly reduced and was surgically removed with no serious side effects during the course of treatment (Forčić et al.). To date, she has been cancer free for six years (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell).

While her recovery is remarkable, Dr. Halassy’s paper was not easily published and created several controversies. In an interview, Dr. Halassy explained that the scientific community had concerns about the ethical implications of self-experimentation as well as her use of lab-grade viral material, which she could produce herself, rather than purer clinical-grade material (Pueyo). The fact that her study only contained a single patient also raises questions of how well such treatment would work on the general population. Her own paper suggests that her experience should prompt additional research in using virotherapy earlier in cancer treatments (Forčić et al.). According to the National Library of Medicine, there are already several studies currently investigating using virotherapy earlier in the cancer treatment process, but it could take years before the practice becomes understood well enough to become widely available.

As a civil engineering major, I still don’t know that much about microbiology, but I now have a new appreciation for the science. While virotherapy is not new technology, how the medical community uses it is still being developed. Exploring the story of Dr. Halassy has given me an example of how the scientific method works in real life. Every study provides new observations and raises new questions, each acting as a steppingstone for the next study. While I may not be interested in pursuing biology further after this class, it’s nice to know that smarter people than I continue to work hard to answer some of the hardest questions we face.

Bibliography

Bifulco, Maurizio, et al. “History of How Viruses Can Fight Cancer: From the Miraculous Healings to the Approval of Oncolytic Viruses.” Biochimie, vol. 206, Mar. 2023, pp. 89–92. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biochi.2022.10.008.

Forčić, Dubravko, et al. “An Unconventional Case Study of Neoadjuvant Oncolytic Virotherapy for Recurrent Breast Cancer.” Vaccines, vol. 12, no. 9, Sept. 2024, p. 958. www.mdpi.com, https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines12090958.

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, and Halassy, Beata. This Woman Cured Her Cancer with an Insane Method. 2026. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NY2gAftzJE.

Ma, Xiao Yin, et al. “Virus-Inspired Strategies for Cancer Therapy.” Seminars in Cancer Biology, vol. 86, no. Pt 3, Nov. 2022, pp. 1143–57. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcancer.2021.06.021.

Matveeva, Olga V., and Peter M. Chumakov. “Defects in Interferon Pathways as Potential Biomarkers of Sensitivity to Oncolytic Viruses.” Reviews in Medical Virology, vol. 28, no. 6, 2018, p. e2008. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1002/rmv.2008.

National Library of Medicine. ClinicalTrials.Gov Search Results. https://clinicaltrials.gov/search?cond=cancer&term=Neoadjuvant%20Therapy&intr=virus&viewType=Card. Accessed 19 Sept. 2026.

Pueyo, Tomas. How to Beat Cancer with Viruses: An Interview with Beata Halassy. 1 Oct. 2024, https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/how-to-beat-cancer-with-viruses-an.

Workenhe, Samuel T., and Karen L. Mossman. “Rewiring Cancer Cell Death to Enhance Oncolytic Viro-Immunotherapy.” Oncoimmunology, vol. 2, no. 12, Dec. 2013, p. e27138. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.4161/onci.27138.