From the Orlando Sentinel
July 26, 2018
Dr. Kenneth Alexander was driving home one day last year when he thought of the idea: what if the Zika virus could be used to kill a childhood cancer called neuroblastoma?
The Zika outbreak was in its third year and scientists had learned that the virus damages the nervous systems of unborn babies by destroying the developing nerve cells.
Those developing nerve cells also make up neuroblastomas.
So, Alexander, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital, started brainstorming with a surgeon colleague and brought on board Dr. Griffith Parks, a University of Central Florida scientist who has been studying Zika.