5 ms·

Which cancer?

by sjtrny 12y ago

Which cancer?

coldtea 12y ago
How about all of them?
- mpyne 12y ago
  And while we're at it we can eradicate all software and biological viruses, since that would be nice to have too, and about as difficult.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Not sure why you got downvoted, it's a very valid comment. The complexity of 'erasing cancer' is very much mis-understood, even though it is of course a noble goal. The biggest issue I think is that cancer is systemic, given a long enough run the way our bodies do their housekeeping cancer is pretty much a 100% certainty. It's like playing the lottery, if you play long enough one day you'll win, only in this case you lose. By far the larger part of the fatalities in my close circle were due to cancer. And I fear that this will remain with us as a problem for quite a while. Compared to curing cancer curing world hunger seems to be easy (it requires no unknown technology, nor does it go against the way our bodies appear to function).
    - mpyne 12y ago
      > Not sure why you got downvoted, it's a very valid comment. I think in retrospect that my normal dose of snark, even with the point I was trying to make, was probably not appropriate to the topic at hand. If nothing else it might seem flippant, and while I know that's not what I would mean, that doesn't mean people seeing the comment independently would realize that. > The complexity of 'erasing cancer' is very much mis-understood, even though it is of course a noble goal. If I had a do-over that's probably exactly how I would phrase it instead. Saying we should simply cure cancer, as it were always one massive public project away and just needed political will, just demonstrates an immature understanding of cancer research as it stands today. Certainly it's a noble goal, but it's seemingly at odds with how biology works in a body in the long run.
  - NAFV_P 12y ago
    > And while we're at it we can eradicate all software and biological viruses, since that would be nice to have too, and about as difficult. Regarding biological viruses, your comment seems to assume that all viruses are detrimental to life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox
- exratione 12y ago
  There's the SENS approach, which is radical and based on present knowledge will absolutely prevent all cancer by striking at the one mechanism that all cancer needs. That comes with a hefty side-order of required advances in stem cell medicine in order to keep things going without said mechanism, however: http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research/nuclear-mutations http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research/nucle... The SENS Research Foundation is entirely supported by charitable donations. If you want something a little less radical then helping any group working on targeted cell killing technologies is more useful than what you were probably going to do with that money otherwise - though of course finding a place to donate that will funnel your funds to this particular research is a challenge. The typical cancer charity is about five levels removed from picking research projects, but one can hope that this will change with the spread of crowdfunding techniques into the sciences. Immune therapies are the front runner technology there, but many other approaches exist (nanoparticles, viruses, bacteria, etc). Some of these approaches seem likely to effectively treat many different types of cancer, such as work on CD47: http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2012/03/one-drug-shrink-all-tumors http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2012/03/one-drug-shrink-al...
- baddox 12y ago
  How about all disease?
- rbanffy 12y ago
  How about any of them? Even if we do it one disease at a time, it'll be worth it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pling 12y ago
Probably the best comment here and I'm surprised many people missed it. There isn't going to be a cure all for every cancer just like that.
- dnautics 12y ago
  I used to say that but there are some promising anti-CD47 ideas that might have a chance of knocking out large swaths of tumors. I can also imagine a 'solution' where you biopsy the cancer and look for highly expressed abnormal cell surface markers and use that to target an antibody-directed warhead to the cancer (I'm interested in turning that into a reality sometime in the future, if you'd like to know more contact me, info's in the profile).
  - sjtrny 12y ago
    Cancer doesn't just include tumours though. Leukaemia for example doesn't present itself as a tumour (and there are many types of Leukaemia).
    - dnautics 12y ago
      CD47 is upregulated in leukemia, too. Actually its importance was discovered in leukemia and the generality was discovered in solid tumors later.

Which cancer?

by sjtrny 12y ago

Which cancer?

coldtea 12y ago

How about all of them?

mpyne 12y ago
And while we're at it we can eradicate all software and biological viruses, since that would be nice to have too, and about as difficult.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Not sure why you got downvoted, it's a very valid comment. The complexity of 'erasing cancer' is very much mis-understood, even though it is of course a noble goal. The biggest issue I think is that cancer is systemic, given a long enough run the way our bodies do their housekeeping cancer is pretty much a 100% certainty. It's like playing the lottery, if you play long enough one day you'll win, only in this case you lose. By far the larger part of the fatalities in my close circle were due to cancer. And I fear that this will remain with us as a problem for quite a while. Compared to curing cancer curing world hunger seems to be easy (it requires no unknown technology, nor does it go against the way our bodies appear to function).
  - mpyne 12y ago
    > Not sure why you got downvoted, it's a very valid comment. I think in retrospect that my normal dose of snark, even with the point I was trying to make, was probably not appropriate to the topic at hand. If nothing else it might seem flippant, and while I know that's not what I would mean, that doesn't mean people seeing the comment independently would realize that. > The complexity of 'erasing cancer' is very much mis-understood, even though it is of course a noble goal. If I had a do-over that's probably exactly how I would phrase it instead. Saying we should simply cure cancer, as it were always one massive public project away and just needed political will, just demonstrates an immature understanding of cancer research as it stands today. Certainly it's a noble goal, but it's seemingly at odds with how biology works in a body in the long run.
- NAFV_P 12y ago
  > And while we're at it we can eradicate all software and biological viruses, since that would be nice to have too, and about as difficult. Regarding biological viruses, your comment seems to assume that all viruses are detrimental to life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox
exratione 12y ago
There's the SENS approach, which is radical and based on present knowledge will absolutely prevent all cancer by striking at the one mechanism that all cancer needs. That comes with a hefty side-order of required advances in stem cell medicine in order to keep things going without said mechanism, however: http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research/nuclear-mutations http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research/nucle... The SENS Research Foundation is entirely supported by charitable donations. If you want something a little less radical then helping any group working on targeted cell killing technologies is more useful than what you were probably going to do with that money otherwise - though of course finding a place to donate that will funnel your funds to this particular research is a challenge. The typical cancer charity is about five levels removed from picking research projects, but one can hope that this will change with the spread of crowdfunding techniques into the sciences. Immune therapies are the front runner technology there, but many other approaches exist (nanoparticles, viruses, bacteria, etc). Some of these approaches seem likely to effectively treat many different types of cancer, such as work on CD47: http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2012/03/one-drug-shrink-all-tumors http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2012/03/one-drug-shrink-al...
baddox 12y ago
How about all disease?
rbanffy 12y ago
How about any of them? Even if we do it one disease at a time, it'll be worth it.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pling 12y ago

Probably the best comment here and I'm surprised many people missed it. There isn't going to be a cure all for every cancer just like that.

dnautics 12y ago
I used to say that but there are some promising anti-CD47 ideas that might have a chance of knocking out large swaths of tumors. I can also imagine a 'solution' where you biopsy the cancer and look for highly expressed abnormal cell surface markers and use that to target an antibody-directed warhead to the cancer (I'm interested in turning that into a reality sometime in the future, if you'd like to know more contact me, info's in the profile).
- sjtrny 12y ago
  Cancer doesn't just include tumours though. Leukaemia for example doesn't present itself as a tumour (and there are many types of Leukaemia).
  - dnautics 12y ago
    CD47 is upregulated in leukemia, too. Actually its importance was discovered in leukemia and the generality was discovered in solid tumors later.