5 ms·

I thought we learned our lesson about "paradigm-changing" scientific results released to the media simultaneous with initial publication a while back. The paper

I thought we learned our lesson about "paradigm-changing" scientific results released to the media simultaneous with initial publication a while back. The paper was published today, and only available behind a pay wall. Yes, this is exciting, but what they appear to have is a better way of tagging cancer cells so the immune system will attack them. This is one round of rodent studies in immunosuppressed mice, for which the abstract only claims "enhanced survival". There is no reflection or information from anyone who isn't actively on the team. This is a press release before a funding cycle, not science. "May treat all cancers?" Please.

headmelted 7y ago
This. How many times in the last 10 years have we gone bananas on HN for an immunotherapy wonder drug just to find it’s another casualty of the current unable-to-reproduce crisis in current science? Remember when CD47 monoclonal antibodies from the Stanford trials were going to save millions of lives? What a time to be not yet dead that was. The poster above is correct. Wanting this to be something wonderful doesn’t make it so, and anyone familiar with the subject matter knows this deserves skepticism. This is getting upvoted because it sounds good, not because there’s solid evidence it has legs. I’d love for this to become a high efficacy treatment for millions of people, but we’ve had the same thing play out so many times now that it’s impossible to be excited. This is what usually happens: They’ll try it in the lab, and it’ll kill cancer. They’ll inject it in mice, and it’ll kill cancer. They’ll try it on people, and it’ll reduce the size of their tumors for six-to-eight weeks before they start growing again. I’ll remember to check back in a year to to see if this is even still a thing. * temporarily
- ammon 7y ago
  Reducing the size of a tumor for six to eight weeks (especially via a new method) could actually be an important result. Many cancer drugs only result in temporary remission when used in isolation, before the cancer out-evolves the drug and comes back. However, using multiple drugs simultaneously (combination chemotherapy) and using the drugs after surgery to kill remnant cells can have a far larger impact. Many of the drugs that can now 'cure' certain cancers in combination only provide brief remission by themselves. (Disclaimer: my only knowledge of this comes from the book The Emperor of All Maladies)
  - headmelted 7y ago
    Fair point with regards to combined therapies. The Emperor of All Maladies is one of my favourite non-fiction books. As long as you can get through the human experimentation. That’s hard going (and horrifying).
    - ptha 7y ago
      Kindle edition appears to be £1.49 on Amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emperor-All-Maladies-Siddhartha-Mukherjee-ebook/dp/B004MPR80E/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emperor-All-Maladies-Siddhartha-Muk...
- steve76 7y ago
  I hope it's just hype, and not covering up something else, something protected by security clearances. All those hydrocarbons lined up. That's a big surface area to defend. Something comes in and sneaks in and sneaks out. --------- Just some end of day thoughts after all the biological structure articles on here. I really should keep thoughts like these to myself. Oh well, here's a good of a journal as any. Nature doesn't call itself DNA or proteins. That's for our benefit to use all the work that's been done before. Modern Platonism helps: 1. You can only go so fast before being two separate things. There's a big margin to overcome between one thing with blurry electromagnetic edges, and two separate things. 2. If there's no thermal medium of transfer, well your watch ticks, don't it? That's about it. You get a discrete frequency at c of a flip book or a film strip. If you can move something around symmetrically between those pages or film slides, you got some wiggle room to do what you want. Electrons, nucleus, more of communication interfaces than containers of dense objects. At some level everything is grounding out. Sometimes the fastest path is the circumference at speed of light frequency. Everything in between has fastest path at all paths. Move the very small with the very little, and receive ethical license based on the self-evidence of suns still on, no new big bang, right? You're you, and we just microwaved that asteroid away with solar emissions. What I want to see: 1. Everything out there, the cosmos, just precipitate from extreme observation. The moon really didn't exist until humans landed on it. 2. Being able to apply genetics to particle theory, resolution of interfaces. 3. Stars modeled as four bar mechanisms, crank-crank / crank-rocker. Quackery, just where my mind goes when I read about something that references quantum biology a little.
- greatpatton 7y ago
  I think that your post is a little bit too cynical. It is not like CD47 has disappeared, and many clinical trials are ongoing currently (15 trials currently recruiting), some with quite positive result (36% of complete response in heavily pretreated patients phase I study) (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1807315 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1807315). Other immunotherapies have saved many people something that you cannot dismiss. On the other ends translation from research to an available treatment is a very long path, but we should be excited every time a treatment save a person that should have otherwise died.

headmelted 7y ago

This. How many times in the last 10 years have we gone bananas on HN for an immunotherapy wonder drug just to find it’s another casualty of the current unable-to-reproduce crisis in current science? Remember when CD47 monoclonal antibodies from the Stanford trials were going to save millions of lives? What a time to be not yet dead that was. The poster above is correct. Wanting this to be something wonderful doesn’t make it so, and anyone familiar with the subject matter knows this deserves skepticism. This is getting upvoted because it sounds good, not because there’s solid evidence it has legs. I’d love for this to become a high efficacy treatment for millions of people, but we’ve had the same thing play out so many times now that it’s impossible to be excited. This is what usually happens: They’ll try it in the lab, and it’ll kill cancer. They’ll inject it in mice, and it’ll kill cancer. They’ll try it on people, and it’ll reduce the size of their tumors for six-to-eight weeks before they start growing again. I’ll remember to check back in a year to to see if this is even still a thing. * temporarily

ammon 7y ago
Reducing the size of a tumor for six to eight weeks (especially via a new method) could actually be an important result. Many cancer drugs only result in temporary remission when used in isolation, before the cancer out-evolves the drug and comes back. However, using multiple drugs simultaneously (combination chemotherapy) and using the drugs after surgery to kill remnant cells can have a far larger impact. Many of the drugs that can now 'cure' certain cancers in combination only provide brief remission by themselves. (Disclaimer: my only knowledge of this comes from the book The Emperor of All Maladies)
- headmelted 7y ago
  Fair point with regards to combined therapies. The Emperor of All Maladies is one of my favourite non-fiction books. As long as you can get through the human experimentation. That’s hard going (and horrifying).
  - ptha 7y ago
    Kindle edition appears to be £1.49 on Amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emperor-All-Maladies-Siddhartha-Mukherjee-ebook/dp/B004MPR80E/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emperor-All-Maladies-Siddhartha-Muk...
steve76 7y ago
I hope it's just hype, and not covering up something else, something protected by security clearances. All those hydrocarbons lined up. That's a big surface area to defend. Something comes in and sneaks in and sneaks out. --------- Just some end of day thoughts after all the biological structure articles on here. I really should keep thoughts like these to myself. Oh well, here's a good of a journal as any. Nature doesn't call itself DNA or proteins. That's for our benefit to use all the work that's been done before. Modern Platonism helps: 1. You can only go so fast before being two separate things. There's a big margin to overcome between one thing with blurry electromagnetic edges, and two separate things. 2. If there's no thermal medium of transfer, well your watch ticks, don't it? That's about it. You get a discrete frequency at c of a flip book or a film strip. If you can move something around symmetrically between those pages or film slides, you got some wiggle room to do what you want. Electrons, nucleus, more of communication interfaces than containers of dense objects. At some level everything is grounding out. Sometimes the fastest path is the circumference at speed of light frequency. Everything in between has fastest path at all paths. Move the very small with the very little, and receive ethical license based on the self-evidence of suns still on, no new big bang, right? You're you, and we just microwaved that asteroid away with solar emissions. What I want to see: 1. Everything out there, the cosmos, just precipitate from extreme observation. The moon really didn't exist until humans landed on it. 2. Being able to apply genetics to particle theory, resolution of interfaces. 3. Stars modeled as four bar mechanisms, crank-crank / crank-rocker. Quackery, just where my mind goes when I read about something that references quantum biology a little.
greatpatton 7y ago
I think that your post is a little bit too cynical. It is not like CD47 has disappeared, and many clinical trials are ongoing currently (15 trials currently recruiting), some with quite positive result (36% of complete response in heavily pretreated patients phase I study) (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1807315 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1807315). Other immunotherapies have saved many people something that you cannot dismiss. On the other ends translation from research to an available treatment is a very long path, but we should be excited every time a treatment save a person that should have otherwise died.