4 ms·

We humans are biologically quite different from a lot of the species we experiment on. To take a salient example, we've cured cancer (all sorts of cancers) in m

by qiqing 11y ago

We humans are biologically quite different from a lot of the species we experiment on. To take a salient example, we've cured cancer (all sorts of cancers) in mice hundreds of times. It's unlikely you'll find a tumor in a mouse we can't fix. But the same things don't work in humans. And although I feel like a weird contrarian saying this, it's entirely possible that by selecting for treatments that are effective in other species, we may be inadvertently missing out on things that might work in humans.

srajabi 11y ago
Wow! Do you have data or a source for this?
- bunderbunder 11y ago
  One example that goes in the opposite direction is the difficulties researchers have had in coming up with an animal model for studying the risks of tobacco exposure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17661225 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17661225
Florin_Andrei 11y ago
> we've cured cancer (all sorts of cancers) in mice hundreds of times. It's unlikely you'll find a tumor in a mouse we can't fix. Wait, what? Really? If that's true, I can see only one explanation - with mice models, we can do far more aggressive research, and therefore we cover a bigger chunk of the parameter space. Some of the same research strategies may not be ethical with human models.
- icegreentea 11y ago
  Well, there's a whole bunch of other stuff too. Most of the time with animal models, we induce cancer by a variety of means - examples include using breeds with certain cancer suppressing genes knocked out, heavy exposure to carcinogens, or direct grafting/injection. These are all mechanisms of getting cancer that are extremely atypical in the human beings we are trying to cure, which may (I think its super likely, especially in the case of knockout genes and grafting) influence cancer-treatment interaction.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Exactly. I know of no mouse study that actually tries to replicate what we want to do in humans. In regards looking for a cure for cancer we are like the drunk who lost their keys in the dark alleyway, but who is searching around the street lamp since the light is better. Until we actually start doing the right studies we will really struggle getting anywhere.
iamcurious 11y ago
You caught my interest. Can you pass me some sources?
andy_ppp 11y ago
I too am absolutely fascinated by this. Seems to be this behaviour that humans have to mine a particular area until it's completely exhausted - you can see this in capitalism, in art, in fossil fuel consumption/extraction, in mouse and animal models of drug trails, silicon computer chips, Internet businesses, search engines and everything else. We never seem to realise while we are on the part of the curve that's accelerating (and things are great) that it's actually a bell curve. There are probably people writing things about this sort of stuff, how we can maybe start to overlap our understanding, maybe even measure what part of the curve we are on? Maybe get governments to invest money into new technologies just at the right points...
- eru 11y ago
  > Seems to be this behaviour that humans have to mine a particular area until it's completely exhausted [...] in fossil fuel consumption/extraction [...] Not actually true. There are lots of examples of mines closing down because exploiting them further is not economical. Some of them restart operations when prices for the dug up commodity rise. (A Google search for `mine reopening' easily finds a few examples in the news around the globe.)
rcthompson 11y ago
Keep in mind that the typical life span of a lab mouse is about 2 years. If your criterion for "curing cancer" in humans is based on the cancer not returning for just 2 years after treatment, then we've also "cured cancer" in many humans.
danieltillett 11y ago
While I agree with you that we are quite different to mice, as far as I know we can’t cure cancer in mice. What we can cure is artificial cancers (i.e those injected into mice), but I know of no study where anyone has tried and succeed curing mouse cancer that replicates human cancer (i.e. let the mice age and develop cancer naturally then treat). If anyone know of a natural cancer cure study in mice or rats that has been published please get in contact with me (or post here) as I have been looking for one for years.

by qiqing 11y ago

srajabi 11y ago

Wow! Do you have data or a source for this?

bunderbunder 11y ago
One example that goes in the opposite direction is the difficulties researchers have had in coming up with an animal model for studying the risks of tobacco exposure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17661225 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17661225

Florin_Andrei 11y ago

> we've cured cancer (all sorts of cancers) in mice hundreds of times. It's unlikely you'll find a tumor in a mouse we can't fix. Wait, what? Really? If that's true, I can see only one explanation - with mice models, we can do far more aggressive research, and therefore we cover a bigger chunk of the parameter space. Some of the same research strategies may not be ethical with human models.

icegreentea 11y ago
Well, there's a whole bunch of other stuff too. Most of the time with animal models, we induce cancer by a variety of means - examples include using breeds with certain cancer suppressing genes knocked out, heavy exposure to carcinogens, or direct grafting/injection. These are all mechanisms of getting cancer that are extremely atypical in the human beings we are trying to cure, which may (I think its super likely, especially in the case of knockout genes and grafting) influence cancer-treatment interaction.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Exactly. I know of no mouse study that actually tries to replicate what we want to do in humans. In regards looking for a cure for cancer we are like the drunk who lost their keys in the dark alleyway, but who is searching around the street lamp since the light is better. Until we actually start doing the right studies we will really struggle getting anywhere.

iamcurious 11y ago

You caught my interest. Can you pass me some sources?

andy_ppp 11y ago

I too am absolutely fascinated by this. Seems to be this behaviour that humans have to mine a particular area until it's completely exhausted - you can see this in capitalism, in art, in fossil fuel consumption/extraction, in mouse and animal models of drug trails, silicon computer chips, Internet businesses, search engines and everything else. We never seem to realise while we are on the part of the curve that's accelerating (and things are great) that it's actually a bell curve. There are probably people writing things about this sort of stuff, how we can maybe start to overlap our understanding, maybe even measure what part of the curve we are on? Maybe get governments to invest money into new technologies just at the right points...

eru 11y ago
> Seems to be this behaviour that humans have to mine a particular area until it's completely exhausted [...] in fossil fuel consumption/extraction [...] Not actually true. There are lots of examples of mines closing down because exploiting them further is not economical. Some of them restart operations when prices for the dug up commodity rise. (A Google search for `mine reopening' easily finds a few examples in the news around the globe.)

rcthompson 11y ago

Keep in mind that the typical life span of a lab mouse is about 2 years. If your criterion for "curing cancer" in humans is based on the cancer not returning for just 2 years after treatment, then we've also "cured cancer" in many humans.

danieltillett 11y ago

While I agree with you that we are quite different to mice, as far as I know we can’t cure cancer in mice. What we can cure is artificial cancers (i.e those injected into mice), but I know of no study where anyone has tried and succeed curing mouse cancer that replicates human cancer (i.e. let the mice age and develop cancer naturally then treat). If anyone know of a natural cancer cure study in mice or rats that has been published please get in contact with me (or post here) as I have been looking for one for years.