I noticed the above image in a press release about using oncolytic viruses alongside more traditional cancer treatments. The caption reads, “Recent studies also indicate that reoviruses work synergistically with standard anti-cancer drugs, providing significantly stronger responses than either agent alone.”

Sounds great, if only slightly creepy. I think of viruses as things to be avoided, but hey, if we can get the little buggers on our side, all the better.

I don’t have much to say about the picture, except that it, too, strikes me as slightly creepy. The disembodied (presumably cancerous) lungs hovering inside a transparent body that recalls Wonder Woman’s invisible jet. The glowing blue treatment entering the un-body intravenously. Everything inside a completely sterile, indeed blank and empty box. I have no idea what this image says about medicine, but let’s jsut say that it doesn’t exude warmth.

But then, I just saw the extremely compassionate Sherwin Nuland as part of my new institution’s lecture series, so perhaps I set my sights too high.