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Frog-derived gut bacterium eradicates tumors in mice
- tristanj 3mo agoRelevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/
- p0w3n3d 3mo agothis one is in mice. I guess we're running in circles now.
- hahahaa 3mo ago"in mice" as a non-perjorative, wow ;)
- cheschire 3mo agoMice tumors, the scourge of humanity.
- boxed 3mo agoNot really the same in this situation though.
- drcongo 3mo agoAs in 99.9% of cases of people who rush to the comments desperate to post a link to xkcd because, erm, actually I dunno. Why the hell do half the threads on HN have someone desperately posting an unrelated xkcd?
- hootz 3mo agoIt's our Nostradamus Prophecies, just like having an old Star Trek episode for everything that is happening today.
- hahahaa 3mo agono idea as there is always a relevant xkcd to be had instead.
- NetMageSCW 3mo agoBecause they aren’t unrelated.
- plasticeagle 3mo agoThe paper states that the results are in vivo, not in vitro. The bacteria seemed to literally have cured colorectal cancer in mice. Mice are apparently strikingly similar to human beings in ways that matter, and so this research is very encouraging. Likely too late for a particular person in my life, but hopefully not too late for others.
- aa-jv 3mo agoWow, this is humorous .. whats next, the eye of the newt cures wistfulness? I sure hope so. Seriously though, we are living in an era where the more the science broadens its horizons, the more it just looks like plain ol' witchcraft. I'm hoping there'll be some uses for figs we haven't thought of, next ..
- vixen99 3mo agoSure thing! Plenty of possibilities here for instance: 'Bioactive Compounds in Ficus Fruits, Their Bioactivities, and Associated Health Benefits: A Review'. (It's a pretty extensive list). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/06ab/f83d30ec00bb902bb1aa3747bdb717b3cb52.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/06ab/f83d30ec00bb902bb1aa37...
- aa-jv 3mo agoYou know, I was hoping for more dragon'y/pixy'ish things, though .. ;)
- criddell 3mo agoYou might like this episode of Radiolab: https://radiolab.org/podcast/best-medicine https://radiolab.org/podcast/best-medicine They followed a 1100 year old medicine recipe and found the resulting salve was effective against MRSA in their test. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6261618/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6261618/
- aa-jv 3mo agoYes, that was indeed fascinating. I think we're not that far removed from the era of witches, personally .. but I say that, as a sorcerer who casts spells to make things happen, mind ..
- cedws 3mo agoBryan Johnson might be interested in IV’ing frog gut bacteria.
- N_Lens 3mo agoHow rude! Bryan is no labrat /j
- VladVladikoff 3mo agoIs Bryan Johnson a mouse with cancer?
- functionmouse 3mo agoMice are having a great year
- N_Lens 3mo agoCentury*
- psychoslave 3mo agoHmm, mice get much impressive medical results to be linked to here and there, but overall it’s not certain the species benefit that much in happiness and fulfilment.
- hack1312 3mo agoThey told me they’re happy enough when I was delivering them cookies.
- eks391 3mo agoDid you have milk too? If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk.
- jagaerglad 3mo agoThe pride and sense of achievement they ought to feel that members of their kind did something should be enough to feel superior though
- hootz 3mo agoTo be honest, they are pretty cute, they don't deserve cancer.
- tclancy 3mo agoSpoken like someone who has never had to rebuild a generator or find out the hard way car wiring is mainly soy-based nowadays.
- pennomi 3mo agoThe AI- generated diagram is plausible but horribly wrong the more you look at it. Thank goodness the original paper didn’t use that, it’s just this awful blog post that makes the research look like slop.
- therobots927 3mo agoAGI is clearly right around the corner. It might not be able to make an accurate diagram of a cancer research study but it’s gonna cure cancer in no time…
- xingped 3mo ago~~I wouldn't be so sure about "clearly". We're still very squarely in the "fancy auto-complete" stage of "AI", the name of which I still consider more branding than reality.~~ Edit: Ignore me, I'm sleepy and can't read, lol
- hack1312 3mo agoThe person you’re replying to was being glib
- xingped 3mo agoLol! Yep, that's my bad. Too sleepy right now.
- TaupeRanger 3mo agoHow in the world did you miss such obvious sarcasm?
- xingped 3mo agoWhoops, lack of sleep, haha.
- jimnotgym 3mo ago100 years of trying everything to kill bacteria, and we find they can be jolly useful
- gpderetta 3mo agohumanity has been producing useful things from bacteria for thousands of things already.
- degamad 3mo agoCheese!
- pestatije 3mo agolager
- usrnm 3mo agoYeast are not bacteria, though
- VladVladikoff 3mo agoMost beer until quite recently was sour from bacteria.
- usrnm 3mo agoBut not lagers, I think
- nephihaha 3mo agoJust wait til people learn that viruses have some positive uses after decades of being told how awful they are.
- rimworld 3mo agolol
- aaron695 3mo ago[dead]
- ballenf 3mo agoI wonder if animals have always seen frogs as unpleasant medicine they need to eat occasionally. My dog would happily scarf them down if I let him. Or does it have to be IV administered? Also who thinks -- "hmm we've found a new random bacteria --- let's give a bunch of tumors to mice and then IV inject this random thing into them!"? There must have been something about the microbe that gave them a hint. Maybe it's in the cited original article and was left out of the blog post.
- cyanydeez 3mo agomaybe your dog is chasing a high from some rare toad mutation...
- psychoslave 3mo agoHumans can go very far in exploring all kind of variation in whatever craze they get addicted to, all the more if they get all the room and resources to do so.
- micromacrofoot 3mo ago> unpleasant > happily I think you answered your own question really, a lot of animals just enjoy eating them (humans included!)
- pjerem 3mo agoTbf, I wouldn't trust my dog's judgement on what I should happily eat.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- petesergeant 3mo agoThe blog articles (6 weeks old) describes this as new, but the linked paper is closer to 6 months old. Random report of the same bacteria giving a chemo patient sepsis: https://www.cureus.com/articles/342789-sepsis-caused-by-ewingella-americana-in-an-immunocompromised-patient-a-case-report https://www.cureus.com/articles/342789-sepsis-caused-by-ewin... which seems unfortunate
- degamad 3mo agoYep, I found that one too - this paper <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/> assumes immunocompetent mice, while the sepsis one was in a patient who was immunocompromised (both by the cancer and by chemo). Given that many cancer sufferers are immunocompromised, this isn't necessarily a silver bullet, although it is an interesting result.
- BigTTYGothGF 3mo agoBefore anybody gets too excited they should check out some of the other reporting on that site, such as "COVID-19 Vaccine is the Culprit in Majority Found Dead after Injection" and "Trump Signed a Directive to Accelerate 6G Deployment to Operate "Implantable Technologies"
- VMG 3mo agoCrank blog, very skeptical
- tiffanyh 3mo agoTo give more credit to this blog post, the NIH published findings on this same subject last year. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/
- scoot 3mo agoDoesn’t that simply make this blog spam?
- toraway 3mo agoOP submitted a Substack newsletter as a source with recent posts including such topics as vaccine “deaths” during COVID, their link to autism, and Fauci bioweapon conspiracy theories implicating the entire scientific establishment. With comments on the current post agreeing that the shadowy cabal will suppress yet another miracle treatment to keep for themselves, so the “goyim” can be sold poison.
- dawnerd 3mo agoIt’s also just pretty obvious ai slop.
- oofbey 3mo agoThe blog is highly suspect, but the study is real. That said it’s not a big deal. Curing cancer in a mouse model is not at all uncommon in new therapies. Mouse models like this are vastly easier to treat than real world cancer for a bunch of reasons. Fully curing mice is the baseline for a treatment to even be considered for further evaluation. And even then very few therapies end up succeeding in humans - low single digit percent. So yes, another possible treatment. But not at all a breakthrough.
- algoth1 3mo agoWhen my mother was fighting cancer, I recall the many disappointments of finding research shrinking tumours in animal models, only to find out the human research showing it didnt work in humans. This was in the 2010s, before llms, but when google search actually searched the web. Then, once you found something that seemed to work in humans, you were hit with the realization that ‘cancer’ is an umbrella term, and you need to account for cell type, and its numerous mutations.. I think the best approach is to collect a sample of the cancer, genotype it, test it against all known anticancer compounds, similar to how you’d deal with a bacterial infection sample, and then hope that the compound that worked for that specific cancer cell will work inside the human
- bcjdjsndon 3mo ago> Fully curing mice is the baseline for a treatment to even be considered for further evaluation If it never works as well if at all in humans, maybe mice are too different?
- oofbey 3mo agoIt’s not that. The tumors they create in mice are just really fragile compared to natural tumors. Natural tumors that actually cause problems have probably grown for years and learned to avoid immune responses. They’re not densely packed and easy to get into all the parts. This kind of treatment triggers an immune response, which the model tumors have never had to fight before. So it’s just an easy target.
- jmorenoamor 3mo agoSorry but the site looks too sensationalist for me. Is there any other source?
- romx-cell 3mo agoWe are destroying ecosystems so fast that there will be no frogs and we will regret it. The same with all the nature
- sevenzero 3mo agoWe get what we deserve. We let the top 1% destroy our planet and also let them live the longest in their bunkers, while we deal with the repercussions of not having done enough. But I've noticed that folks on HN are very very fond of capitalism, so it's no point arguing against it on here and on the effects of wealth accumulation and greed.
- vrganj 3mo agoPeople here strive to be the ones hiding in the bunkers as the world burns.
- bell-cot 3mo agoMost humans would prefer hiding in a bunker to burning. And far better to be hiding, than watching and playing a fiddle from atop some convenient high wall. Or plotting how to destroy your fellow alpha arsonists next.
- someonebaggy 3mo agoIt would be even better if the world didn't burn.
- 1234letshaveatw 3mo agoBan AC!
- ajkjk 3mo agopeople are very fond of it here -> there's no point arguing against it here? Backwards logic. If they're fond of it then they're the people to be arguing against, no?
- tekacs 3mo agoI'm astounded that this thread doesn't contain at least one 'eat the frog' joke. https://asana.com/resources/eat-the-frog https://asana.com/resources/eat-the-frog
- paulryanrogers 3mo agoBecause this is HN and not Reddit?
- gus_massa 3mo agoPrevius discussion (from the university press release) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 (498 points | 6 months ago | 140 comments) I'll rehash my comment They used mice, because they are good for early tries. The researchers had 9 bacterias and only 1 was successful. Experiments in mice are cheaper and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans. (Hey! They even injected the cancer cells in mice and waited a week until it grow. Nobody will approve something like that in humans.) The title claims that the tumos were eradicated. The title hides that it was a small tumor they injected in the mice and more importantly that it disappeared for two weeks until the experiment ended. It's difficult to guess if it will be useful for humans with bigger tumors because they are harder to detect, and it would work for a interesting enough period like 5 years. There is also and old comment by octaane https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 I'll quote it partially: > Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote: >> "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)" > PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are PD-L1 positive. [...] Many tumor types are not PD-l1 positive. > Doxy is an ancient SOC chemo. > [...]
- bcjdjsndon 3mo ago> and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans More like, what's a mouse gonna do about it?
- duozerk 3mo agoWait patiently until their planet-sized computer gives them the answer they've been waiting for and then take their revenge
- sfifs 3mo agoHaHa I was thinking just the same :-) For those unfamiliar with the reference, in Hitchikers guide to the galaxy series, Mice are projections of hyper intelligent extra terrestrial beings from a higher dimension who commission the creation of planet earth complete with fossils as a giant organic computer
- GaProgMan 3mo agoSo the Bursar at Unseen University was on to something this whole time? And we all thought was mad!
- andrewstuart 3mo agoMice are so goddam healthy. They get all the good medical breakthroughs.
- bell-cot 3mo agoFrom what I've heard of murine health and life expectancy stats, all those "good medical breakthroughs" aren't actually doing them much good. Vs. there's a whole lotta of money to be made in mouse medicine. Symbolic, perhaps?
- frellus 3mo agoI kid you not, there was a movie with Sean Connery called "Medicine Man" (1992) with this exact same theme. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/?ref_=fn_t_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/?ref_=fn_t_1 In it, Connery finds what looks to be a rare natural cure to all cancer in the Rain Forest (spoiler: not a frog, but equally as weird), and is literally battling the nearby deforesting and bulldozers. For a Sean Connery movie it was bizarre (As a young teen, I saw it in the theaters.. quite a bit less action than a 007 movie but good drama and dramatic Sean Connery acting).
- tclancy 3mo ago>For a Sean Connery movie it was bizarre Buddy, if you're trying to tell me it's weirder than Darby O'Gill and the Little People, I am going to need more than Sir Connery in a ponytail.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago> I am going to need more than Sir Connery in a ponytail Check out Zardoz: Connery with a ponytail, a pistol in hand, wearing thigh-high boots and a mankini. And a giant flying stone head that vomits guns. I am not joking.
- tclancy 3mo agoOh, I didn't need you to say more than Zardoz to bring that beautiful memory back.
- frellus 3mo agoYeah, with a movie like that in his credits, it seems a miracle he was ever selected to be James Bond. His radar for picking great movies was equally bad as it was good.
- stogot 3mo agoHe had to pay his bills
- lizardking 3mo agoNever been a better time to be a mouse
- Geee 3mo agoVery cool research. They just injected mice with 45 different bacterial strains, and then isolated and cultivated the ones that had the best performance. It seems that it might be quite easy to cultivate these strains to target different tumors / specific tumor samples. Ewingella Americana itself is a quite common bacterial species, but it seems that the effective strain is the frog-derived and cultivated one. So don't go injecting yourself with a random E. Americana. Full article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2025.2599562 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2025.2...
- giwook 3mo agoGreat news for mice everywhere.
- patchtopic 3mo agorest of the site has the usual "cooker" insane brainrot ivermectin, etc crap
- westurner 3mo agoMaybe a bit of CPMV (Cowpea Mosaic Virus) for the cancer too ah? CPMV for Cancer. Cowpeas are also known as Black-Eyed Peas; which are regarded as good luck and used to be in pastures and thereby human diets.
- froh42 3mo agoA single dose of a high velocity bullet also eradicates 100% of tumors.
- _aleph2c_ 3mo agoThe website is misnamed, it should be called thefecalpoints.com
- cg805 3mo agoIt's like ozempic all over again! God bless the reptiles
- __MatrixMan__ 3mo agoThey say: > Outperforming chemotherapy and immunotherapy And then later: > As a facultative anaerobe, it preferentially accumulates within the hypoxic tumor microenvironment, where it rapidly proliferates and exerts direct cytotoxic effects while simultaneously activating a broad immune response. Within hours, tumors become infiltrated with T cells, B cells, and neutrophils, accompanied by surges in key inflammatory cytokines like TNF-α and IFN-γ. So this is immunotherapy. Although it is clever immunotherapy. Gut bacteria doesn't usually survive long in the bloodstream because there's too much oxygen present (that's part of why it's gut bacteria, its unlikely to go all Leeroy Jenkins on the rest of the organism). The TME is often so densely packed with growth that its less oxidative than surrounding tissue. So the bacteria that don't find a tumor don't last long enough to cause problems and the ones that do find one see it as a bit of a refuge from the problematic environment and colonize it specifically, throwing off whatever subterfuge the tumor was using to keep the immune system from getting involved. It's a bit like throwing a brick through the window of a bank that was being quietly robbed by somebody else. The cops show up and realize they've been overlooking a separate problem.
- martinbfine 3mo ago[dead]
- tglobs 3mo ago[dead]
- code_lettuce 3mo agoNow do Astrocytoma.
- bsiverly 3mo agoMcCullough’s outlet (Nicolas Hulscher writes for the McCullough Foundation) has a track record of overselling single-study preclinical results with breathless framing… and mice are basically clones of one another. Interesting but not a game changer. Eat more fiber and fermented foods yo
- DamnInteresting 3mo agoThis is reminiscent of Coley's Toxins[1], an early experimental cancer treatment using Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria. Coley and other practitioners claimed some substantial success, but the mechanism of action was not understood, and the treatment varied so much that scientific verification was elusive. (Note: I am affiliated with the linked website, but I didn't write the article in question) [1] https://www.damninteresting.com/coleys-cancer-killing-concoction/ https://www.damninteresting.com/coleys-cancer-killing-concoc...
- stanfordkid 3mo agoWow amazing. I am very curious how the spider "learns" to do this technique, that it works, and to repeat it. Is this somehow encoded in the DNA of the spider? Clearly spiders don't rear their children or learn / communicate so it must be evolved and encoded somewhere in either the genes or the epigenetics. Nature is amazing.
- OutOfHere 3mo agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46283089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46283089