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I'm not the biggest fan of Thiel's thinking, but this line shows that the two founders did their job very well: >They convinced me there is a surprising amount

I'm not the biggest fan of Thiel's thinking, but this line shows that the two founders did their job very well: >They convinced me there is a surprising amount that has gone wrong with the cancer cell lines people have been studying This sounds that they managed to explain to him how much is going wrong with HeLa cells (I assume he's talking about HeLa - these are the most widely used). They're so sturdy that they contaminate everything to the point that some well-known, well-used cancer cell lines turn out to be nothing but HeLa contamination [1]. There's ethical problems as the original cells were taken from Henrietta Lacks without her consent (this is slowly being rectified, have a look at "The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks"). HeLa cells have mutated so much in culture that they have little in common with human cells [2]. I wonder which "human cancer" cells they graft into mice. All together, this sounds like the founders did their homework on science communication. To scientists this highlights the importance of communication - it's not "just" useful for talking to "the public about the importance of your work", it can make you some serious money! [1] http://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/11/more-hela-problems-for-decades-a-widely-used-bladder-cancer-line-hasnt-been-what-scientists-thought/ http://retractionwatch.com/2013/03/11/more-hela-problems-for... [2] http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-biology/2013/09/17/debating-the-hela-cell-controversy-karyotype-defined-cell-line-identity-and-the-privacy-of-patients-2/ http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-biology/2013/09/17/debatin...

eggie 11y ago
The fact that they managed to convince Mr. Thiel that they have a unique approach indicates as much about his lack of education in biology as it does their ability to communicate. The problems with modeling human disease using "found" cancer cell lines (of which HeLa is just one of hundreds) have been widely-understood for well more than a decade. These cells have absurd, fragmented genomes with bizarre and variable chromosomal copy numbers. They have lived in culture for sometimes many decades, under strange evolutionary pressures. They provide models in which we can explore human-like cells and regulatory pathways, but it is well-acknowledged in the field that these are not sufficient to model a generic form of cancer, much less a particular patient's cancer. Thiel is approaching biotech with the same blindness with which older investors approached investment in datatech during the dot-com bubble. There is no more reason to believe that this startup will corner the market on xenograft-based research into cancer therapeutics than there was to believe that pets.com would become the be-all and end-all of everything pet related online. But this comes back to your point, that the founders have done a fantastic job of communication. I hope they are communicating the truth, and not just their dream. It will be a big fall if it is the latter.
- a_bonobo 11y ago
  As the article is a bit short on details we can only grasp at what they exactly do different - maybe they're not doing anything unique, maybe he's just impressed with how they're using "known" methods to minimize risks/randomness. I really can't tell from the text what kind of cells they use and how random these are, or how novel their method is (if it is even novel).
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Yeah, Thiel seems quite ignorant in this article unfortunately. I was aware of the HeLa contamination issues and ultramarathon-culture length, but I haven't heard the bit about the extreme genomic abnormalities in HeLa (I haven't worked with HeLa cells) and it sounds really interesting, can you speak a bit more about the specifics?

eggie 11y ago

The fact that they managed to convince Mr. Thiel that they have a unique approach indicates as much about his lack of education in biology as it does their ability to communicate. The problems with modeling human disease using "found" cancer cell lines (of which HeLa is just one of hundreds) have been widely-understood for well more than a decade. These cells have absurd, fragmented genomes with bizarre and variable chromosomal copy numbers. They have lived in culture for sometimes many decades, under strange evolutionary pressures. They provide models in which we can explore human-like cells and regulatory pathways, but it is well-acknowledged in the field that these are not sufficient to model a generic form of cancer, much less a particular patient's cancer. Thiel is approaching biotech with the same blindness with which older investors approached investment in datatech during the dot-com bubble. There is no more reason to believe that this startup will corner the market on xenograft-based research into cancer therapeutics than there was to believe that pets.com would become the be-all and end-all of everything pet related online. But this comes back to your point, that the founders have done a fantastic job of communication. I hope they are communicating the truth, and not just their dream. It will be a big fall if it is the latter.

a_bonobo 11y ago
As the article is a bit short on details we can only grasp at what they exactly do different - maybe they're not doing anything unique, maybe he's just impressed with how they're using "known" methods to minimize risks/randomness. I really can't tell from the text what kind of cells they use and how random these are, or how novel their method is (if it is even novel).
cryoshon 11y ago
Yeah, Thiel seems quite ignorant in this article unfortunately. I was aware of the HeLa contamination issues and ultramarathon-culture length, but I haven't heard the bit about the extreme genomic abnormalities in HeLa (I haven't worked with HeLa cells) and it sounds really interesting, can you speak a bit more about the specifics?