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Tailor-Made Cancer Drugs
pmineiro writes "A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a method for delivering an inactive drug complex into the body, which is only activated by certain messenger RNA sequences. This allows a drug to be selectively activated only in certain cellular contexts, e.g., cancer or HIV infection."
That doesn't seem to be how it works. You would have to biopsy the specific cancer that you are trying to destroy to get the correct trigger sequence. Attacking a virus may be more generic, but I doubt this could be used as a preventative measure. This seems to be much more useful as an after-the-fact cure. If I had cancer or HIV I would definitely grab this in an instant. Chemo can be pretty effective, but it does a lot of damage to healthy tissue as well. This seems like the ideal way to avoid that.
-SablKnight
> In the presence of cosmic rays and background
> radiation, to say nothing of the computer
> monitors, cellular phones, and irradicated beef
> that we surround ourselves with every day, these
> genetic superdrugs could easily mutate. In their
> new forms, they'd be essentially unstoppable.
> One stray gramma ray could spell the end of
> humanity.
<SARCASM>So, good thing you actually read the article, and have a solid grasp of the relevant biology.</SARCASM>
Mutations in the prodrug and catalyst would most likely decrease their binding affinity for their target sequence, and likely mRNA sequence in general. Thus, the drug would be *less* likely to be activated.
The idea that the "genetic superdrugs" would easily mutate and "spell the end of humanity" is ludicrous. For this to happen, they would need some way to reproduce themselves, which they don't. If they did, they would be analogous to virii. While virii are often pathogenic, they haven't destroyed humanity as of yet.
(By the way, I'm amused by people who talk about "what Nature intended". Did you have a nice long chat with Nature about this stuff? Did Nature give you an itemized list of things Nature intended? If so, the next time you and Nature do lunch, I'd like to tag along.)
Do you have any idea what "traditional" cancer treatment costs?!? I got about (US) $30K of radiation treatments in one month and I'm pretty sure that 6 months of chemotherapy wasn't exactly cheap. Add in surgery and my personal bill surely tops $60K.
With custom full sequencing coming down in price (see Race for the $1000 genome is on for instance), such custom tailoring of drugs doesn't seem so ridiculous any more.