Hello knowledgeable ones…
Have you been following the news on CD 47 coming out of Stanford University ? And what about the news from Oxford where another pepcide or something like that is offering hope. Basically I think its all related to stem cells and immunotherapy.
Please opine… is this another false hope or is there something to look forward to ?
Cruella 
Too early to tell. Human trails are set to start mid-2014.
From Stanford U.
It’s true hope.
You won’t know that all forms of cancer have been really been cured until many years after it has happened, when we see if the cancer comes back. How could it be any other way?
In addition to reading more about cancer research, you might want to pick up a book of two from the library on the history of tuberculosis, once the world’s number one cause of death and conquered by 1970 (although now somewhat coming back). Then ask yourself whether anyone knew, for sure, in 1946, whether tuberculosis was too tough for antibiotics. They didn’t. But there was hope. Same today with cancer immunotherapy, and perhaps some other areas of cancer research.
The best scientists tend to believe in what they are doing. I just read an interview with an outstanding cancer scientist, in my local area, who thinks a more or less general cancer cure isn’t that far off. This doesn’t mean he’s a fake, any more than it means he is right. Even if the only reason he needs to be an optimist is to get through the days when patients die, I am all for it.
Maybe someone is going to now reply that there can’t be a general cancer cure because cancer is dozens of different diseases. But until almost all cancers are curable or preventable, we can’t even know that.
Although these sorts of articles are so easily misunderstood, I guess I should include an imperfect link or two:
How do they block the “don’t eat me” signal of that protein without causing the immune system to eat all cells?
They are counting on the fact that expression is higher on tumor cells and they can therefore thread that needle. Not uncommon in cancer therapeutics to try to kill the tumor cells faster than the normal cells.
And in the process, they may just be selecting for tumor cells which have normal (rather than elevated) CD 47 levels. Biology’s tricky that way.
I agree this approach sounds very promising, but as we all know it’s premature to do much cheering until extensive human trials have been performed.