In this week’s Medical Discovery News by UTMB’s David Niesel and Norbert Herzog: The measles vaccine is 95 percent effective, and in 2012 only 55 cases of measles were reported in the U.S., mostly due to traveling abroad. Now, a study has demonstrated that the measles virus might actually be a useful treatment — for cancer. It sounds strange — using one serious disease to fight off another — but scientists have found a way to direct the cell-killing powers of viruses to cancer cells. The use of viruses to destroy cancer cells, called oncolytic virotherapy, has been investigated since the 1950s.