See this link:
http://www.wesh.com/...673/detail.html
Posted 09 May 2006 - 02:51 PM
Posted 09 May 2006 - 03:20 PM
Posted 09 May 2006 - 04:03 PM
Why isn't this all over the news?
Posted 09 May 2006 - 04:20 PM
Posted 09 May 2006 - 04:54 PM
Why isn't this all over the news?
Probably cause of this statement from the BBC article: "There are no immediate practical benefits to humans"
They (apparently) just bred a new strain of mice that was resistant to the disease, which, although impressive, isn't the same as being able to cure mice who have cancer, or prevent cancer in regular mice. We already know of species (sharks for example) that can not get cancer, it is the ability to cure or prevent cancer in species that can get it that would be a major breakthrough. (imo)
Now, they said white blood cells from that mouse's descendants were injected into ordinary mice with cancer and their disease was completely wiped out.
The treatment worked with a variety of cancers, including those similar to end-stage human cancers.
“This is a really remarkable recovery from a very aggressive tumor,” Wake Forest cancer researcher Dr. Zheng Cui said.
The mice did not suffer any side effects from the treatment. They had no problems with rejection.
The goal now is to find a human treatment that could avoid the rejection problem by using a patient's own cells.
White cells from a cancer patient would be combined in a test tube with the specific anti-cancer gene and then given back to the same patient.
“The hope would be that those activated white blood cells would be able to treat that person's cancer successfully,” Wake Forest Pathologist Dr. Mark Willingham said.
In mice, the white blood cells were able to find the cancers no matter where they were located in the body, suggesting that the cancer cells produce some kind of signal that the killer cells can detect.
The treatment also worked with naturally occurring cancers.
Next steps include trying to determine exactly how the cancer-fighting mechanism works, and Wake Forest researchers are working on a specific test that can indicate cancer resistance in humans.
A cure is still a long way off, but they believe that, like mice, there are humans out there with genes to fight cancer.
For example, out of all people who smoke, only a small percentage get cancer. What keeps them safe is still unknown.
Posted 09 May 2006 - 06:25 PM
Posted 09 May 2006 - 06:30 PM
John:....might make a rather glorious biotech product in the mid-to-late 21st century
Posted 09 May 2006 - 06:43 PM
Posted 09 May 2006 - 11:33 PM
Posted 10 May 2006 - 12:17 AM
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:56 AM
Posted 10 May 2006 - 12:13 PM
To dampen your optimism a little bit, bear in mind that there are considerable differences between mouse and human tumors. The most important ones of them derive from the fact that human tumors have more time and more cells, so they have greater potential to evolve against any type of treatment.
Posted 10 May 2006 - 12:53 PM
We already know of species (sharks for example) that can not get cancer, ...
Another question that rises is of course, why on earth did evolution not install even modest immune-based defenses in us, but did install extremely elaborate cell-intrinsic defenses? I really have no clue there. Ideas, anyone?
Edited by kent23, 10 May 2006 - 01:15 PM.
Posted 10 May 2006 - 03:06 PM
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:11 PM
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:28 PM
Kent? What are you talking about? For unicellulars, "cancer" (i.e. uncontrolled replication) is "desirable"... That's why they all replicate without constraints. DNA maintenance in yeast prevents dysfunction, not uncontrolled replication. Also, why would immune systems have had enough time to evolve their exceptional sophistication against exogenous infection, but not at all against endogenous infection (cancer)?why on earth did evolution not install even modest immune-based defenses in us, but did install extremely elaborate cell-intrinsic defenses?
- It hasn't had enough time to do so? It's had much more time (and a much larger population) with which to evolve single-cell quality control mechanisms (checkpoints, DNA repair, etc.)? Yeast don't get cancer. Maybe we should take yeast cartilage extracts...? Maybe cancer is smarter than evolution?
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:34 PM
Also, why would immune systems have had enough time to evolve their exceptional sophistication against exogenous infection, but not at all against endogenous infection (cancer)?
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:37 PM
True, but you need not only some foreign epitope to get an immune response going, but also a danger signal (cytokines and things). Otherwise you'd for example die in puberty, when many new antigens first appear. But, because the danger signal is missing, you get tolerized, rather than immunized. Unfortunately, the danger signal is something the tumor has near complete control over. The innate tumor immunity described here might provide a way out by generating the danger signal from leukocytes with invariant tumor pattern recognition receptors (similar to e.g. bacterial LPS recognition by macrophage scavenger receptors), but we don't know if this is so yet, nor can we really imagine why there should be anything like an invariant pattern in advancing human tumors.it is expressing innapropriate genes then it will stand out immunologically and be a target for this type immune system reprogramming
Edited by John Schloendorn, 10 May 2006 - 05:06 PM.
Posted 10 May 2006 - 04:43 PM
No, it's because our cell-intrinsic cancer defenses are so good (compare with other species -- mice are almost guaranteed to have tumors after two years). So the selective pressure to evolve tumor defenses is clearly there, because sophisticated defenses did evolve. The question remains, why did they only evolve on the cell-intrinsic side?Some childhood cancer happens, but I think most is due to environmental factors
Posted 10 May 2006 - 07:12 PM
The claim of a normal life-span of the treated mice seems surprising, when it is so effective against naturally occurring tumors. How can life-span possibly remain "normal" when cancer is the major cause of death in inbred strains? The data is luckily not reported in the paper, because if it were convincing, it would in fact suggest severe side-effects to bring the life-span down to normal.
Posted 10 May 2006 - 07:54 PM
why there should be anything like an invariant pattern in advancing human tumors
Posted 10 May 2006 - 08:59 PM
Kent? What are you talking about? For unicellulars, "cancer" (i.e. uncontrolled replication) is "desirable"... That's why they all replicate without constraints. DNA maintenance in yeast prevents dysfunction, not uncontrolled replication.
Also, why would immune systems have had enough time to evolve their exceptional sophistication against exogenous infection, but not at all against endogenous infection (cancer)?
Worth mentioning is that this mechanism may already exist in some humans who do not die from nor have ever had cancer, therefore once the murine SR/CR leukocytes are sufficiently characterised a hunt for the human analogues could begin, perhaps by devising a test to screen all the public blood banks. This would bypass the requirement to genetically engineer leukocytes which would add years of delays before usage in humans would be permittted.
Posted 10 May 2006 - 10:40 PM
track down a bunch of people with a family history of not getting cancer, and see if their leukocytes can kill tumors in vitro!
Posted 11 May 2006 - 01:25 AM
Posted 11 May 2006 - 03:05 AM
Do it!
Posted 11 May 2006 - 04:06 PM
Posted 11 May 2006 - 10:47 PM
A. So, has anyone looked at human leukocytes killing tumors in vitro?
B. Are there people we can safely say are "cancer-resistant", and has anyone looked at their leukocytes?
C. What about the leukocytes of centenarians and their progeny?
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