Fox & NY Post report on cure for cancer

[colander]

@storyteller0910

I especially like the blase way the Post article throws off the fact that the antibody also stimulates short-term immune attacks on healthy cells (though “nothing compared to what it did to the cancer”). Surely that couldn’t be a problem anywhere down the line. Miracle cure! Line up to buy it!

Reminds me of the tragic case of TGN1412, an antibody formulated to bind and stimulate CD28 receptors on T Cells. Intended to treat leukemia, the drug made it all the way to human trials… whereupon it induced catastrophic organ failure in the six human test subjects. What works in animals doesn’t always work in humans.

[elbows]

Drug companies and their researchers produce packaged pieces, identical to standard news coverage formats, touting the latest findings and offer them at little to no cost to news outlets. With local news budgets getting thinner all the time, more and more often, if you look closely you’ll recognize though it was intro’d by the local anchor, sometimes even voiced over, it was manufactured by a drug company. That’s part of why people feel inundated with upcoming expected breakthroughs in medicine. A new one every other day.

[Boyo_Jim]

I can only look gratefully forward to a world of cancer-free mice.

[deltasigma]

Not bad - for the Post. The Science article is here and is a bit more circumspect, but then they did have more column inches to play with (guess I shouldn’t say that as if to imply it matters though). Here are the closing paragraphs of that article, you know, where fine print is always buried.

     Although macrophages also attacked blood cells expressing CD47  when mice were given the antibody, the researchers found that the  decrease in blood         cells was short-lived; the animals turned up production of new  blood cells to replace those they lost from the treatment, the team  reports online today         in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*.     

          Cancer researcher Tyler Jacks of the Massachusetts Institute of  Technology in Cambridge says that although the new study is promising,  more research is         needed to see whether the results hold true in humans. "The  microenvironment of a real tumor is quite a bit more complicated than  the microenvironment         of a transplanted tumor," he notes, "and it's possible that a  real tumor has additional immune suppressing effects."     

          Another important question, Jacks says, is how CD47 antibodies  would complement existing treatments. "In what ways might they work  together and in what         ways might they be antagonistic?" Using anti-CD47 in addition to  chemotherapy, for example, could be counterproductive if the stress  from chemotherapy         causes normal cells to produce more CD47 than usual.     

          Weissman's team has received a $20 million grant from the  California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to move the findings from  mouse studies to         human safety tests. "We have enough data already," says  Weissman, "that I can say I'm confident that this will move to phase I  human trials."     

[deltasigma]

OT, but I just came across this and since the whole issue of translating murine results to humans was an issue, I thought it might be of interest. “More attention — and money — should go toward studying disease in people than on mouse research, a consortium of scientists contends online February 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

Of course it’s not that simple as you’ll see from the article. Worth reading.
[URL=“http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348250/description/In_research_it_matters_whether_youre_a_man_or_a__mouse”]

[Ken001]

There are many forms of cancer and there cannot be one single miraculous answer. Cancer occurs when human cells decide to continue dividing instead of remaining stable. Quite why this happens we cannot know but isotopic atoms (as in nuclear radiation) may play a part.

There are about 200 known types of cancer and each type is specific to its cell-type.

It is highly unlikely that there will ever be a universal cure for all cancers - ie a command which tells the cells to stop dividing.

Instead we hope specific treatments will address individual cancers and turn them off.

Generally there are roughly 12 common cancers and these get the most attention. One day not too far away there will be cures.