A cure for cancer?

[dmytryp]

I hope they come through with this
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126056.html
Israeli scientists have identified a substance that can kill cancerous cells without harming healthy ones, paving the way for more effective cancer treatment.

The findings by researchers at Tel Aviv University and Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, were published in the current issue of the international peer-reviewed journal Breast Cancer Research.

"We actually found the Achilles heel of the cancer cell," said Prof. Malka Cohen-Armon from Tel Aviv University, who headed the research team. "As soon as you can target cancerous cells without killing healthy ones, you can produce medications that would cause a lot less suffering to the patient. We can even give a much more aggressive treatment without worrying about harming healthy tissues."


Every time I post a story about some new israeli discovery I am really tempted to call the thread "divest this!":)

[Gretad08]

I wish that this could be used right now...test on willing terminal patients. It's so great to read stories that offer hopeful cures but it's frustrating to know that it could be years (if ever) before people can see the benefits.

[icerose]

I wish that this could be used right now...test on willing terminal patients. It's so great to read stories that offer hopeful cures but it's frustrating to know that it could be years (if ever) before people can see the benefits.

That is the ultimate frustration in science is that human testing is so difficult to get to. It is both good and bad. It protects us against many faulty things but it also means progress is slow.

[Perks]

I wish that this could be used right now...test on willing terminal patients. It's so great to read stories that offer hopeful cures but it's frustrating to know that it could be years (if ever) before people can see the benefits.There are so many people who have nothing to lose. I'm afraid it's hobbled by our litigious tendencies. Unforeseen problems in an experimental trial can make a sick person's clock run faster and that's acceptable right up until it isn't. Then everybody lawyers-up.

[Gretad08]

There are so many people who have nothing to lose. I'm afraid it's hobbled by our litigious tendencies. Unforeseen problems in an experimental trial can make a sick person's clock run faster and that's acceptable right up until it isn't. Then everybody lawyers-up.

My Dad is currently on hospice w/Cancer. We know he's dying, we don't know if it will be today or in two years so it's hard to say if it would make his clock run faster or not. What I do know is that we would do anything to stop this cancer from attacking his body. He's only 55.

The way I see it either he dies with absolutely no chance of treatment/cure as he is set to now, or we try experimental therapies and it helps him or kills him which the cancer would have done anyway.

But Perks, I see your point. We're not the lawyerly sue happy/type family, but who knows what type of reaction we might have if things went horribly wrong. The treatment might not only kill, but cause horrible suffering as well...that would be a hard pill to swallow. The more he suffers, the more all of us suffer.

[Perks]

Yeah, it's very hard. I'm so sorry that your father is facing this and that you all have to try to make worry, hope, and love into some sort of manageable cocktail.

[Kitty Pryde]

Loads of things that seem to work in a test tube in a lab don't work at all/are horribly dangerous when tested in an animal or a human. It doesn't make sense at all to jump straight to human trials even for a neat-o discovery like this one. Even testing on terminal patients is no good--initial human trials don't test for effectiveness anyways, they test for safety. It's incredibly irresponsible to test stuff with an unknown safety profile, even if people are desperate--the trial could hasten death, or increase suffering. It's not merely litigiousness--it's the first bit of Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm :)

Go check out the TGN1412 clinical trial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGN1412) -- 6 healthy men nearly died, and will suffer autoimmune diseases for their entire lives, and one developed cancer as a direct result of being a healthy stage-1 trial participant.

[Bartholomew]

I hope they come through with this
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126056.html


Every time I post a story about some new israeli discovery I am really tempted to call the thread "divest this!":)

Jeez, Israel, give some of the other countries a chance to save the world. o.O

I jest. This is awesome. My mom needs some.

[ColoradoGuy]

As with all promising cell culture (i.e., "test tube") and limited animal experiments (mice, in this case), the best attitude is one of cautious optimism. From the abstract, it appears that the drug does not entirely spare normal cells (as implied by the news article), but rather that the normal cells tested escaped from its effects. The panel of cancer-derived cells did not escape from this growth cycle arrest. This is very preliminary stuff. It appears to me that the most useful part is the novel approach toward possible control of the cellular growth cycle in cancer cells, since escape from normal control is the hallmark of cancer. Here's the abstract (http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/11/6/R78), for those interested.

[clintl]

That is the ultimate frustration in science is that human testing is so difficult to get to. It is both good and bad. It protects us against many faulty things but it also means progress is slow.

That's because there's a pretty significant history during the 20th Century of unethical and harmful practices by researchers on human subjects. The rules that have been developed are almost entirely a response to that.

[icerose]

That's because there's a pretty significant history during the 20th Century of unethical and harmful practices by researchers on human subjects. The rules that have been developed are almost entirely a response to that.

Oh absolutely and I'm not contending that. It doesn't make it not frustrating though. They are extremely important and they are there for very good reasons. But at least they aren't releasing medical products as poorly tested as microsoft. ;)

[AllieKat]

How anyone can hate Israel is beyond me when the Jewish people have so consistently discovered and invented amazing things to benefit all of humanity.

If cancer gets cured, yes, I'm betting it will be Israel and / or Jewish scientists who have a large hand in it.

[veinglory]

Similarly hopeful statement have come out pretty much every month for years, none have panned out yet.

[dgiharris]

That is the ultimate frustration in science is that human testing is so difficult to get to. It is both good and bad. It protects us against many faulty things but it also means progress is slow.

THe delays in human testing are primarily good. The main problem in medical science is that biological systems are SO complicated that we really do not understand the scientific fundamental principles of why something does or does not work.

The majority of the medical industry/science is built on trail and error science. Thus, you have no choice but to go step by step. From test tubes, to cultures, to mice, then dogs/pigs, then monkeys, then humans and along the way you hope you've put together a decent enough model to begin to piece together all the whys and hows. And even after all that, it is worth pointing out that a HUGE percentage of promising drugs STILL DON'T WORK on humans.

But there is an upside, we can cure pretty much any type of cancer in a rat...

As with all promising cell culture (i.e., "test tube") and limited animal experiments (mice, in this case), the best attitude is one of cautious optimism.

Until the treatment shows results in monkeys, I do not even bother with cautious optimism.

I do believe we are a decade or so away from having some incredible breakthroughs in the field of cancer and genetics. I am hopeful, but extremely guarded.

Mel...

[benbradley]

That is the ultimate frustration in science is that human testing is so difficult to get to. It is both good and bad. It protects us against many faulty things but it also means progress is slow.

There are so many people who have nothing to lose. I'm afraid it's hobbled by our litigious tendencies. Unforeseen problems in an experimental trial can make a sick person's clock run faster and that's acceptable right up until it isn't. Then everybody lawyers-up.
ETA: I was going to respond to these, but whatever ... yeah, it's more legal and humanitarian reasons that keep things from moving faster than anything to do with science.

On the other hand, if more "promising" treatments were applied directly to people, a lot more of them would die in the short run, but in the long run such a practice could end up with much better treatments than we will have using current methods (and in a sense, a "war on cancer" as Nixon declared way back when would be much more like a REAL war - people would indeed die in the fight) and more lives could be saved overall. No doubt there's some social and philosophical ramifications of this that someone might want to comment on...

Oh absolutely and I'm not contending that. It doesn't make it not frustrating though. They are extremely important and they are there for very good reasons. But at least they aren't releasing medical products as poorly tested as microsoft. ;)
Whatever you do, don't read http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks and especially not this particular digest (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/19.88.html).
Similarly hopeful statement have come out pretty much every month for years, none have panned out yet.
Yet the survival rates of many cancers has gone up steadily over the decades. Part of it is getting the message out about early detection when cancer hasn't spread and is more easily curable, but it's also that treatments have steadily improved. When I was young (and they showed cigarette commercials on TV), a cancer diagnosis was a near-certain death sentence within a few years. Nowadays people with a cancer diagnosis more often end up "in remission" and live a normal or near-normal lifespan than die of it. This great improvement in cancer survival has happened over the last half century the few short decades of my life so far.

A single cure-all would indeed be a great accomplishment, and I don't dismiss that possibility with this finding, but that hasn't been how the battle against cancer has been going so far.

[Zoombie]

Sweet!

The march of progress continues on, and...well, I don't really care who invents the damn thing just so long as they're one of the good guys and, for all its faults, Israel is one of the good guys. Or...at least, I think so.