4 ms·

The first cancer vaccine that works

42 points by inshane 15y ago

tejaswiy 15y ago
"The big question now is whether this therapy could work in humans. Clinical trials that would lead to using this therapy on humans could begin in two years." I really should stop getting overly optimistic about these articles. Also, I realize HN terms loosely say that anything that can be termed as items of interest to hackers is acceptable, but as a community can we please keep off miracle cures for AIDS, Cancer, Incredibly efficient batteries and Super cheap solar cells and <Insert prototype of cure-all renewable energy source here> until something real materializes? If not, I'd honestly like to know if anyone really derives value from these articles and remembers them for more than 10 seconds.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  I wish these articles were more useful. However, I will beat my usual drum and point out that a major reason we cannot tell one such article from another is that the original articles are behind a thirty-two-dollar-per-article paywall. I worked as a cancer researcher for a few years, and I assure you that the details can be quite interesting if you can see them. But from this writeup I can't see a thing. They delivered DNA to a mouse with cancer. Did the mouse have mouse cancer or transplanted human cancer? If the mouse had mouse cancer, how did it get that cancer? Did they administer carcinogens, or use mutant mice with cancer-prone prostates? If the mouse had human prostate cancer transplants (a typical technique) and those were cured by mouse anti-human antibodies formed in response to virus-borne human prostate DNA... does this have any relevance to human treatment at all, given that humans don't routinely come down with cancers that were transplanted from other mammals? And, crucially, what happened to the prostates of the mice? Did they get attacked by the antibodies that attacked the cancer? If not, why not? If so, are we really prepared to attack, say, stomach cancer by inducing an autoimmune response that might also attack the stomach itself? That doesn't sound so great! These aren't even very sophisticated questions. (I was never a very good cancer researcher.) Anyone with a freshman education in bio could ask these basic but enlightening questions. And maybe someone with a Nature Medicine subscription would be kind enough to answer them. Because this popular-press rehash of a press release sure doesn't help much. As you say, such rehashes all sound the same. The devil is in the details, and the details are always missing. EDIT: in my eagerness to give examples of basic questions I realize that I'm being a little too cartoonishly obtuse. In fact, we can deduce from the fact that the mice apparently can form antibodies that they are immunocompetent, which implies that they probably do have mouse cancer, because it's hard to transplant human cancer into a mouse with a functioning immune system. They reject it. But I shouldn't have to guess this stuff. It's all right there in Nature Medicine. Somewhere. Pity that the karma I'd earn for this comment isn't worth thirty-two dollars to me.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  Honestly, I hadn't heard about this, and I think it is great news. And I think a really interesting technique used. While appeals to authority are frowned upon, the author list is impressive, and gives me more hope that this is not quackery or extremely poor science.
- bkudria 15y ago
  Sometimes the news is really interesting: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-...
- jcr 15y ago
  tejaswiy, I'm one of the people you can blame for posting stuff like this and you can check the 'submissions' link in my profile for further confirmation. --I've probably submitted on every topic you've listed, and I do so because I consider them interesting and useful. I'll agree such news is all too often lacking depth and details, but oddly enough, that is the point of a quick news writeup. If the topic interests you enough to do more work, at least you know about it and can now make the choice if it is worth the additional effort and expense since a lot of research sits behind paywalls. The value of the detail-free "news" articles is simply knowing about the various advancements being made. Even if you have little interest in the topic and mostly forget about it tomorrow, just knowing about it might be really beneficial at some later time. You just never know when trivial and useless minutiae about on-going research and development will suddenly become important knowledge. --When faced with some related problem, you may just recall reading about new and related R&D that can be applied. After all, terms like "hacking" and "hacker" are nothing more than a marketing push to use sexy-cool names for "Research and Development" and the people who do it. If research and development news doesn't interest you, that's fine, but if so, then why are you here? --This isn't intended as an insult in any way. I'm actually very curious about what you want HN to be? I'm particularly curious because I seem to be (in part) responsible for the "problem" you mentioned. What would make HN better for you?
alphaoverlord 15y ago
There are both vaccines for HPV (cause of cervical cancer) and HBV (cause of liver cancer).
- sp332 15y ago
  That's a bit like saying sunscreen is a vaccine for skin cancer.
  - mechanical_fish 15y ago
    No, actually, it is like saying there is a vaccine that prevents many cervical cancers. And there is: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine/WO00120 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine/WO0... If you're a woman under age 26 you should get this at once. The cited article totally skips over these existing vaccines, of course. Probably someone along the line deleted one too many words from a more factually accurate sentence in the original press release.
    - JacobAldridge 15y ago
      And it's increasingly showing value for boys as well - http://www.slate.com/id/2296748/pagenum/all http://www.slate.com/id/2296748/pagenum/all Saddens me that the take up has not been much, much higher, but I have other forums for expressing my views on anti-vaccination liars.
      - ahoyhere 15y ago
        Sad to say it but the reason the HPV vaccines haven't been more popular has little to do with anti-vaccination propaganda, and much more to do with anti-sexual-promiscuity propaganda. Lots of people -- including many, many, many women -- think that vaccinating their daughters against HPV will encourage them to be promiscuous and that it is somehow preferable to risk their lives.
        JacobAldridge 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mdkess 15y ago
s/theory/hypothesis/g
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
Given my father was just diagnosed with prostate cancer, my grandfather died of it, and two of my uncles have been treated for it, I REALLY hope this works out. I won't be skipping my prostate exam when the time comes while waiting for it.
- msie 15y ago
  I just saw on the news that a low carb diet can prevent cancer but of course the experiment was performed on mice. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/10/0008-5472.CAN-10-3973.abstract http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/10/0... Take care.
johnx123 15y ago
Read somewhere that Steve Jobs was under alternate medication. Anybody knows any details about that alternate medicine?
ZoFreX 15y ago
How is this the "first cancer vaccine that works" by any stretch of the imagination? There are vaccines that have completed testing and are on the market, and have been for years.
phatbyte 15y ago
Anyone recalls the movie "I'm a legend" ? Just saying..... :P On topic: If this is true, this is great news. I know they are supposed to test it and that takes time, but I find that a lot of these "found cure for xxx" news kind of fade away after awhile to never be heard. It's not the first time I read a cure for cancer or HIV, but never comes out.
busyant 15y ago
This cancer vaccine is already on the market and it already works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuleucel-T http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuleucel-T The study mentioned in the i09.com article is just public relations -- in particular, b/c mouse cancer models are often not predictive of human results.

42 points by inshane 15y ago

"The big question now is whether this therapy could work in humans. Clinical trials that would lead to using this therapy on humans could begin in two years." I really should stop getting overly optimistic about these articles. Also, I realize HN terms loosely say that anything that can be termed as items of interest to hackers is acceptable, but as a community can we please keep off miracle cures for AIDS, Cancer, Incredibly efficient batteries and Super cheap solar cells and <Insert prototype of cure-all renewable energy source here> until something real materializes? If not, I'd honestly like to know if anyone really derives value from these articles and remembers them for more than 10 seconds.

mechanical_fish 15y ago
I wish these articles were more useful. However, I will beat my usual drum and point out that a major reason we cannot tell one such article from another is that the original articles are behind a thirty-two-dollar-per-article paywall. I worked as a cancer researcher for a few years, and I assure you that the details can be quite interesting if you can see them. But from this writeup I can't see a thing. They delivered DNA to a mouse with cancer. Did the mouse have mouse cancer or transplanted human cancer? If the mouse had mouse cancer, how did it get that cancer? Did they administer carcinogens, or use mutant mice with cancer-prone prostates? If the mouse had human prostate cancer transplants (a typical technique) and those were cured by mouse anti-human antibodies formed in response to virus-borne human prostate DNA... does this have any relevance to human treatment at all, given that humans don't routinely come down with cancers that were transplanted from other mammals? And, crucially, what happened to the prostates of the mice? Did they get attacked by the antibodies that attacked the cancer? If not, why not? If so, are we really prepared to attack, say, stomach cancer by inducing an autoimmune response that might also attack the stomach itself? That doesn't sound so great! These aren't even very sophisticated questions. (I was never a very good cancer researcher.) Anyone with a freshman education in bio could ask these basic but enlightening questions. And maybe someone with a Nature Medicine subscription would be kind enough to answer them. Because this popular-press rehash of a press release sure doesn't help much. As you say, such rehashes all sound the same. The devil is in the details, and the details are always missing. EDIT: in my eagerness to give examples of basic questions I realize that I'm being a little too cartoonishly obtuse. In fact, we can deduce from the fact that the mice apparently can form antibodies that they are immunocompetent, which implies that they probably do have mouse cancer, because it's hard to transplant human cancer into a mouse with a functioning immune system. They reject it. But I shouldn't have to guess this stuff. It's all right there in Nature Medicine. Somewhere. Pity that the karma I'd earn for this comment isn't worth thirty-two dollars to me.
kenjackson 15y ago
Honestly, I hadn't heard about this, and I think it is great news. And I think a really interesting technique used. While appeals to authority are frowned upon, the author list is impressive, and gives me more hope that this is not quackery or extremely poor science.
bkudria 15y ago
Sometimes the news is really interesting: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-...
jcr 15y ago
tejaswiy, I'm one of the people you can blame for posting stuff like this and you can check the 'submissions' link in my profile for further confirmation. --I've probably submitted on every topic you've listed, and I do so because I consider them interesting and useful. I'll agree such news is all too often lacking depth and details, but oddly enough, that is the point of a quick news writeup. If the topic interests you enough to do more work, at least you know about it and can now make the choice if it is worth the additional effort and expense since a lot of research sits behind paywalls. The value of the detail-free "news" articles is simply knowing about the various advancements being made. Even if you have little interest in the topic and mostly forget about it tomorrow, just knowing about it might be really beneficial at some later time. You just never know when trivial and useless minutiae about on-going research and development will suddenly become important knowledge. --When faced with some related problem, you may just recall reading about new and related R&D that can be applied. After all, terms like "hacking" and "hacker" are nothing more than a marketing push to use sexy-cool names for "Research and Development" and the people who do it. If research and development news doesn't interest you, that's fine, but if so, then why are you here? --This isn't intended as an insult in any way. I'm actually very curious about what you want HN to be? I'm particularly curious because I seem to be (in part) responsible for the "problem" you mentioned. What would make HN better for you?

alphaoverlord 15y ago

There are both vaccines for HPV (cause of cervical cancer) and HBV (cause of liver cancer).

sp332 15y ago
That's a bit like saying sunscreen is a vaccine for skin cancer.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  No, actually, it is like saying there is a vaccine that prevents many cervical cancers. And there is: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine/WO00120 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cervical-cancer-vaccine/WO0... If you're a woman under age 26 you should get this at once. The cited article totally skips over these existing vaccines, of course. Probably someone along the line deleted one too many words from a more factually accurate sentence in the original press release.
  - JacobAldridge 15y ago
    And it's increasingly showing value for boys as well - http://www.slate.com/id/2296748/pagenum/all http://www.slate.com/id/2296748/pagenum/all Saddens me that the take up has not been much, much higher, but I have other forums for expressing my views on anti-vaccination liars.
    - ahoyhere 15y ago
      Sad to say it but the reason the HPV vaccines haven't been more popular has little to do with anti-vaccination propaganda, and much more to do with anti-sexual-promiscuity propaganda. Lots of people -- including many, many, many women -- think that vaccinating their daughters against HPV will encourage them to be promiscuous and that it is somehow preferable to risk their lives.
      - JacobAldridge 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mdkess 15y ago

s/theory/hypothesis/g

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

Given my father was just diagnosed with prostate cancer, my grandfather died of it, and two of my uncles have been treated for it, I REALLY hope this works out. I won't be skipping my prostate exam when the time comes while waiting for it.

msie 15y ago
I just saw on the news that a low carb diet can prevent cancer but of course the experiment was performed on mice. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/10/0008-5472.CAN-10-3973.abstract http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/10/0... Take care.

johnx123 15y ago

Read somewhere that Steve Jobs was under alternate medication. Anybody knows any details about that alternate medicine?

ZoFreX 15y ago

How is this the "first cancer vaccine that works" by any stretch of the imagination? There are vaccines that have completed testing and are on the market, and have been for years.

phatbyte 15y ago

Anyone recalls the movie "I'm a legend" ? Just saying..... :P On topic: If this is true, this is great news. I know they are supposed to test it and that takes time, but I find that a lot of these "found cure for xxx" news kind of fade away after awhile to never be heard. It's not the first time I read a cure for cancer or HIV, but never comes out.

busyant 15y ago

This cancer vaccine is already on the market and it already works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuleucel-T http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuleucel-T The study mentioned in the i09.com article is just public relations -- in particular, b/c mouse cancer models are often not predictive of human results.