Recomment(?) from a reddit thread on the same story from someone who claims to work in cancer research: The chances that this antibody will work in humans is E

Recomment(?) from a reddit thread on the same story from someone who claims to work in cancer research: The chances that this antibody will work in humans is EXTREMELY small. The model that would have to be used here is injecting human prostate cancer cells into nude mice (this is a strain that is totally lacking in its own immune system so foreign cancer cells can actually survive and not be killed within minutes), allowing the tumor to grow, and then injecting the antibody or even ust the antibody fragment int the tail vein. You then palpate the tumor over the next few weeks. You'd also want to sample the tumor and maybe do some TUNEL to check for actual rates of apoptosis. Chances are very slim that an antibody that fights this specific strain of lab grown cancer (lab grown cancers have generally been grown for so long that they are heavily mutated to say the least) will be effective in humans. Humans have many, many, many different strains of prostate cancer and unless these researchers have accidentally stumbled upon the holy grail of surface markers that somehow indicate internal genetic expression...I am skeptical. Additionally, you've linked to an article that is so vacuous that it doesn't even feel the need to cite the actual results which it is based upon. VPNed through my department account and I can't even find the article. http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ajcaq/an_antibody_has_been_discovered_f77_that_finds/ http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ajcaq/an_antibody_h...