Obviously with all that we are just starting to know about the genome and cancer and their complex relationship those numbers sound a extremely optimistic. But at the same time exponential growth in computing and understanding of the genome through this, obviously bioinformatics is now allowing this to happen.
With organ printing just around the corner, I would say there is great hope for much BETTER cancer therapies that will increase the insulting famed "5 year survival rate" we keep hearing so much about, as if after those 5 years it suddenly becomes "ok" to drop dead from your cancer.
I have been going through cancer paranoia ever since I began my recovery from my bout with an unseeminly hard chemical imbalance that rendered me useless for about 3 years, smoking cigarettes as the mental and physical toll this took on me was...I can't even describe.
I refer back to this because now I have extreme cancer paranoia, and sobbed today uncontrollably when I realized my mother who passed away from cancer at 65 years of age dealt with 3 different cancers in her short life, beating the first two, and had an aggressive strain of a seemingly sporadic/non-inheritable cancer that killed her. She probably would have led a full life, fully beating the first two cancers; breast, and thyroid, both which are becoming much more treatable, especially for Thyroid.
I loathe cancer, naturally, as I do death itself. And the pathologies of cancer and mechanisms for which some are inherited through families only compounds the issue. Then there are environmental, lifestyle, and gene mutations, the latter of which any of us could be susceptible to. I'm slow to learn of the complex nature of this beast, but let's just say I'm now meeting with a genetics counselor at the esteemed Dana Farber Institute in Boston, Ma. to best assist me with any preventative measures I can hope to take.
I'm going to go through my families history of cancer, which for the exception of my mom is virtually null. That gives me lots of hope, but at the same time I see millions succumbing to it and this obviously devastates me.
I remember going skiing at Cannon Mt. in New Hampshire, thinking of cancer all day, and randomly meeting woman who told me she's living with breast cancer and that each genetic code for each individual, because it's so, unique and different from the next person's, makes it so difficult for oncologists to treat cancer. Of course with the oncoming of gene therapy and, to my limited understanding, the ability one day soon to tailor cancer treatment based solely on that individuals genetic variations/characteristics, we hopefully will have this technology up and running within the next ten to 20 years, and at least allow for cancer patients to survive much longer, whilst living chronically with their disease, unless we find a real cure. There was a recent study where they eliminated all cancer tumors in mice within a 10 day time frame, through creating aggressive DNA cells through proteins in vitro, I think, that rendered the mice completely cancer free!
And this type of promising research in mice could happen in humans too, as in the granulocyte study, which I don't know where that's at right now.
So that naturally contradicts the many claims by oncologists and other cancer researchers that we can never cure cancer, at least not in most of our lifetimes. I remain optimistic that we may not even have to get to the level of tailored cancer treatment such talked about, and instead, wipe the beast out entirely through an entirely novel method. I know Aubrey has talked about curing cancer and he seems to be way ahead of other biogerontolgists and oncologists in his unique vision for an engineering approach, which I can barely understand.
Preventative measures like the idea of taking myo inositol, simple inositol powders that have shown to be chemopreventative for lung cancer in most cases, even in one human trial could pave the way for even better research in cancer prevention. Now there was a study showing Metformin reduced tumor growth in mice by a whopping 50%!
Your professor may be considering some of these findings, but probably is really getting at the bigger picture where we are really understanding just so much more, that I am still in the dark about.
Edited by dfowler, 05 May 2010 - 09:24 AM.
she is very optimistic that in about 20 years, most mortality from cancer will be eliminated. she is mostly worried about brain cancer and some other aggressive cancers, but she believes all cancer rates will be improved dramatically.
I know it's not that amazing that just a woman from our university says that, but well, she is there in research for like 10 years now and knows quite a bit, so I thought I should share 
