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A Protein That Terminates 70% Of Common Cancers

Posted by timothy on from the cancer-sucks dept.

Orne writes "BBC News reports here that researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis have located 'a protein CUGBP2 (that) interacted with the mRNA for Cox-2 in eight types of human cancer cells.' Cox-2 (which is already known to affect inflammation in arthritis sufferers) is involved in growing blood vessels to feed cancer cells, leading to their uncontrolled growth. Raising CUGBP2 to normal levels puts the cancer's 'death' cycle back on track."

8 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. good, but... by C21 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    what are the side effects with flooding tissue with this protein?

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    this is not a sig.
  2. Re:More info here... by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thank you. As a cancer survivor, this is of much interest to me. Now if only I can get some sort of medical insurance, I can start up on my yearly check ups.

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    "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
  3. This is quite a breakthrough... by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 1, Interesting

    But unfortunately it will have to go through a decade-long FDA approval process and of course be ridiculously expensive because of royalties, despite the fact that it is a hormone that the body naturally produces and it will only be used in concentrations similar to what is found in normal tissue, so it is extremely unlikely it could have any significant bad side effects. On a similar note gene-sequence patenting is absurd and malicious. What if someone had patented Vitamin C?

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    Repeal the DMCA!
    1. Re:This is quite a breakthrough... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That arguments would be more convincing if Big Pharma companies weren't posting such huge profits. If all the money generated by selling drugs at high prices went back into R&D, I don't think anyone would object. But it doesn't -- most of it, instead, goes into increasing the value of the executives' stock options.

      And patenting drugs is fine, but patents on gene sequences are absurd, and should not be recognized by any country. And I say this as someone who works in biotech ...

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      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  4. Any way to volunteer for tests? by Cyclone66 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's probably to early but anyone who knows people with inoperable cancer would probably love to try anything.. just the hope it would give them would make there last days/months/years of life more bareable.

  5. UD.. by olman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if all those UD packets I crunched had anything to contribute. Probably not.

  6. I wonder... by Gamasta · · Score: 3, Interesting

    if cancers can evolve, eventually becoming immune to these proteins. I think not, but nature is often quite surprising.

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    reason defies logic
    1. Re:I wonder... by wilgamesh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Very insightful. You would be describing the case of Gleevec, among I'm certain other cases. Gleevec is the wonder drug that's been shown to have great effects on leukemia (CML). However, patients will develop resistance to it during the course of treatment. The source of resistance, it turns out, is the mutation of the Gleevec target (a protein) such that it binds Gleevec differently.

      One story: http://www.researchmatters.harvard.edu/story.php?a rticle_id=510

      There's also the common idea that many cancers are multi-mutational events. That is, many mutations conspire in the cellular network to produce a cancerous cell. What that means is one cancer cell may have one method of producing all the right cell factors to proliferate wildly, while another cell employs a slightly different mechanism of doing so. This would mean that any single-prong approach to treating cancer would not be entirely successful. Hence, the article mentions that "multi-prong" approaches are a possible next step.