4 ms·

Cancer Vaccine Works 'Startlingly Well' in Mouse Model

26 points by blanche_ 9y ago

ValentineC 9y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279856
reasonattlm 9y ago
Original publicity materials: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccin... Paper: https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488
- nonbel 9y ago
  First sentence shows something is wrong: >"It has recently become apparent that the immune system can cure cancer." https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 Recently? This has been thought for quite awhile... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=immune+surveillance+cancer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=immune+surveillanc... And really it is obvious that there are trade offs between immune surveillance of cancer and auto-immune disease. Next they will be surprised at the tradeoff between aging/organ failure and cancer.
hguhghuff 9y ago
So many vaccines work beautifully in mice. Must be comforting to be a mouse facing health issues.
- radiorental 9y ago
  I'm sure in an alternative universe there's a mouse complaining about how many vaccines seem to work so well on the humans they test but too few make it market. Maybe we should skip the middleanimal? I'm sure some of those drugs that failed to work on surrogates are perfectly fine for humans.
  - edf13 9y ago
    That will be going on somewhere I'm sure... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
- shubb 9y ago
  As I understand it, many diseases that wild mice almost all carry have been eliminated in lab mice, using some fairly crazy measures. They also have very little genetic variation due to the way they have been bred. I think there is a very interesting scifi novel in reading about how that stuff was achieved and what human society would be like after it was applied...
  - Morizero 9y ago
    > They also have very little genetic variation due to the way they have been bred. Specifically, the mechanism is inbreeding. Each generation has less and less genetic diversity, until individuals are essentially clones.
- nonbel 9y ago
  It is just easier to cherry pick results, p-hack, etc for mouse studies since there is less oversight. Once you get into even primate studies, where the data is expensive enough, the level of crap drops substantially (although is still very high in absolute terms, I mean like 99.99% to 99% junk).
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    nonhuman primate trials in oncodrugs are exceedingly rare.
    - nonbel 9y ago
      Not sure about your point, but anyway it doesn't seem exceptionally rare to me: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cancer+vaccine+macaque https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cancer+vaccine+mac...
deleted 9y ago
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26 points by blanche_ 9y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279856

Original publicity materials: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccin... Paper: https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488

nonbel 9y ago
First sentence shows something is wrong: >"It has recently become apparent that the immune system can cure cancer." https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488 Recently? This has been thought for quite awhile... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=immune+surveillance+cancer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=immune+surveillanc... And really it is obvious that there are trade offs between immune surveillance of cancer and auto-immune disease. Next they will be surprised at the tradeoff between aging/organ failure and cancer.

hguhghuff 9y ago

So many vaccines work beautifully in mice. Must be comforting to be a mouse facing health issues.

radiorental 9y ago
I'm sure in an alternative universe there's a mouse complaining about how many vaccines seem to work so well on the humans they test but too few make it market. Maybe we should skip the middleanimal? I'm sure some of those drugs that failed to work on surrogates are perfectly fine for humans.
- edf13 9y ago
  That will be going on somewhere I'm sure... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
shubb 9y ago
As I understand it, many diseases that wild mice almost all carry have been eliminated in lab mice, using some fairly crazy measures. They also have very little genetic variation due to the way they have been bred. I think there is a very interesting scifi novel in reading about how that stuff was achieved and what human society would be like after it was applied...
- Morizero 9y ago
  > They also have very little genetic variation due to the way they have been bred. Specifically, the mechanism is inbreeding. Each generation has less and less genetic diversity, until individuals are essentially clones.
nonbel 9y ago
It is just easier to cherry pick results, p-hack, etc for mouse studies since there is less oversight. Once you get into even primate studies, where the data is expensive enough, the level of crap drops substantially (although is still very high in absolute terms, I mean like 99.99% to 99% junk).
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  nonhuman primate trials in oncodrugs are exceedingly rare.
  - nonbel 9y ago
    Not sure about your point, but anyway it doesn't seem exceptionally rare to me: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cancer+vaccine+macaque https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cancer+vaccine+mac...

deleted 9y ago

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