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Breeding Cancer-Proof Mice

Posted by timothy on from the still-not-drop-proof-though dept.

Bob Vila's Hammer writes "In an article at New Scientist, research scientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina have been able to breed a cancer-proof mouse. The lucky new finds, some 700 cancer-proof mice, have the ability to destroy numerous different kinds of cancer cells in their bodies very efficiently without the use of T-cells (white blood cells). Instead the body's innate immune system attacks the tumor cells and ruptures them with neutrophils and macrophages. What is so astounding within early findings is that the power of these mice to resist cancer seems to be unlimited and as well, a genetic trait able to be passed down to further generations without the negative results of previous mouse breeds with autoimmune diseases."

4 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is great, but I wonder... by aqkiva · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Cancer has been around in the human population also. One would imagine that we would have evolved to be resistant also like these mice if it was easy and stable to do so. It may not be "Oh, cancer is good" but rather, "Defending against cancer is bad." Who knows if these mice are normal otherwise? Maybe for every cancer cell that gets killed, a brain cell goes along with it.

  2. virii instead of mice? by laard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If only we could breed a friendly virus that would attack cancer cells in the host body...but then I guess we'd have to make another virus to kill that one when we're done with it, and so on, and so on...

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    --- If we knew half the things we shouldn't we'd stop wishing we knew it all
  3. Re:This is great, but I wonder... by NonSequor · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Evolution involves more than just surviving to reproduce. You could say that longer lifetimes are "justified" evolutionarily if after reproducing the parents help out their children to ensure that they live to reproduce. For a species like fruit flies, I doubt there is much that the parents could do to help their young. But for humans, it is vital that the parents stick around.

    As another poster noted, we do have resistances to cancer. It is only when these mechanisms are overridden that cancer develops. One could say that medical science is just another mechanism that we have evolved to protect ourselves from cancer and other threats. Medicine is the result of our intellect, an evolution which has done great things for us so far.

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    My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  4. The cause by Catskul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe this was the cause of the resistance.

    Most of the mice that are the subject of cancer research are "Harvard mice". As a previous post noted normal mice dont have to worry about cancer, because they get eaten before getting old enough to have cancer. So, normal mice evolve in ways to evade predators.

    For the "Harvard mice" the only threat is cancer. So maybe those mice have finaly evolved to avoid the only thing that is a threat to them: cancer.

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    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni