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Cure for Cancer?

Posted by Hemos on from the fixing-the-machine dept.

Ensign Regis writes "MIT's Technology Review is reporting that an Israeli institute has developed "molecular-sized" computers that can detect and eradicate cancer cells. Right now, it only works in test tubes, but it may soon be developed for humans."

13 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:cancer i the future by raffe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The molecular-scale computer could take 10 years to reach clinical trials, according to the researchers. "....hrmppfffff

  2. Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by Doug+Dante · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The molecular-scale computer could take 10 years to reach clinical trials

    If I were dying of cancer in 5 years, and I weren't likely to make it another 5-10 years for this treatment to be deemed "safe and effective", could I try it at my own expense?

    My uncle died of inoperative throat cancer. About a year afterwards, I read about a treatment that had just been approved by the FDA using radiation and finely controlled robots that could have saved his life. It was a long shot, but I don't think that he ever had the chance to consider it.

    I know that this opens the door to all sorts of criminals, but it could save a lot of lives. Just a modest rant.

    --
    The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
    1. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by orn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, you can. But it's hard.

      Here is an excellent book written by a friend that has been pushing for his own cure:

      Racing to a Cure

      And his web site:

      Ruzic Research Foundation

      It's actually a very slashdot concept. You learn everything there is to know about the disease. You find researchers working on the disease. You critically evaluate their research and then either emulate them or convince them to use you as an experimental subject.

      Very, very hard. I'd say it's worth it. If I'm diagnosed with a life threatening disease, I fully intend to take this route and fight it right to the end.

      Rudy

      (ps. the book link is an amazon associates link because I highly recommend the book.)

      --
      1. 2.
    2. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think that's pretty much his point.

      "I'm going to die soon. You have a treatment that needs testing. F*** it, if I'm going to die anyway use my as a test subject so hopefully others can benefit from what you learn."

      "Oh no! We can't do that. It has to be approved for human trials first! We wouldn't want to harm you..."

      "I'm going to die anyway! How much could you possibly harm me?"

      "It doesn't matter, it would be unethical."

      "But thousands of people die of this disease every year. Is it perfectly ethical to let this potential treatment sit on a shelf for ten years before you even start testing it?"

      "Of course! We wouldn't want to harm anybody. It doesn't matter how many people die while we drag our feet through red tape. As long as we haven't touched them, we aren't responsible for their deaths!" ...F'ing semantics.
      =Smidge=

    3. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by Otter · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It looks to me like the computer part is single-stranded DNA that base pairs with the mRNA for certain cancer genes. Presumably when a high enough level of these mRNAs is sensed, another DNA molecule is released.

      Right. It's like a miniature microarray assay, and the "computer" senses expression of multiple genes, integrates them and makes a binary decision.

      I'm guessing it is an antisense molecule, but the news article doesn't say. The news article also has no detail on how the drug is released. My guess is its a cleavage event. DNA enzymes capable of self-cleavage have been created in the past.

      Yes, it's an antisense molecule but after puzzling over the figures, I still don't understand whether there's a cleavage event or transcription or something else.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    4. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by datababe72 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I went and found someone with a subscription to Nature, and got a hold of the paper. Its actually a short Letter. They don't spend much time on the chemistry, being more interested in the logic. However, they do put their methods in the supplementary materials. They are still a bit vague for my taste, but maybe I've just been out of the wetlab for too long! So take the following with a grain of salt... I'm not really sure I understand their chemistry yet, and I had to stop trying and get back to my real work. (:

      It looks to me like their recognition molecules are engineered to include a FokI (restriction enzyme) recognition site. So when the recognition molecule binds to the diagnosis molecule, a dsDNA is created with the FokI site. These causes a portion of the diagnosis molecule to be cleaved.

      This can happen with recognition molecules each of the four mRNAs considered to be diagnostic of the type of cancer they are "curing" (prostate cancer). If all four positive recognition molecules are processed, enough DNA is chewed away by FokI to release the drug, which is an antisense ssDNA for MDM2 or another previously studied antisense drug.

      They have opposite logic in DNA attached to a drug suppressor (presumably the anti-antisense?), providing additional diagnostic control.

      For effective drug administration you need the diagnostic molecule to release its drug, and the drug suppressor molecule NOT to release the suppresor.

      What I have yet to figure out is how the recognition molecules are generated when the correct mRNA levels are sensed. The diagnostic state for prostate cancer has two genes downregulated and two genes upregulated. So a positive diagnosis is supposed to occur when the concentration of the first two genes is zero and the concentration of the other two genes is non-zero. But as I said, I haven't yet understood how these inputs are turned into the correct recognition molecules.

      All of this work is being done with synthetic DNA and RNA in a test tube.

    5. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by fireduck · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A friend of mine is essentially doing this (although in a very much DIY manner). He was recently profiled on NPR's All Things Considered. Basically: med student develops incredibly rare nasal cancer which is almost always fatal. No one's doing much research on it, so the guy decides to research it himself, by first trying to grow his cancer cells in the lab. he's nowhere near the "try cure on self stage", but one has to start somewhere.

    6. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by Salis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Otter,

      I bet it's using anti-sense mRNA to interfere with protein production of some protein that contributes to the continuation of cancer. So not really a drug..more like RNA interference.
      The article doesn't mention names (??), but I wouldn't be surprised if it came out of the Alon group.

      I don't like it when the media portrays DNA hybridization as 'computation'. It's really a giant misnomer.

      --
      Favorite /. tagline: "On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN." And it was good.
    7. Re:Could You Choose Beta Release Medicine? by cpt_rhetoric · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, but I let you test it and it kills you, your family will sue me for not only every penny I own, but every penny I would ever make plus infinity.

  3. pity we'll never be able to get it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    after all if that wanker bush and his cronies get to stay in office and subsequently so do the lobbyiests who the fuck thinks that unless medical services are outsourced we're ever gonna be able to pay for this kind of treatment.

    come on, at this point we're not allowed to purchase drugs in canada because they're 'cheap and unreliable'. so who thinks that utopia is galloping over the horizon?

  4. researching the wrong thing by hak1du · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Having a general purpose mechanism for killing cells with specific, detectable differences is nice, but it isn't exactly new: most of cancer therapy is based on that premise. This particular mechanism sounds like it may give you more specificity, but there are already lots of ways of targeting cancer cells with high specificity.

    The problem is that the more complex you make the molecules that kill cancer cells, the harder they get to deliver. You can think of RNAi as a simpler version of this "molecular computer", something that would probably already help in many cancers, and we can't even deliver something that comparatively simple reliably.

  5. Yeah, right! by Black+Rabbit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The ONLY thing that will remotely cure cancer is to get rid of the environmental concerns that are causing it in the first place. Each and every one of us is sucking in carcinogenic dioxins into our body every second of every day. That's just for starters. Meybe if we started treating the causes, not just the symptoms, we might start getting somewhere.

  6. Would you want to know by Uma+Thurman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Suppose this nanomachine could tell you that you would be dead from cancer in 10 years. Would you want to know? I mean, if it's incurable, wouldn't it be better to find out just before you died, rather than having to worry about it for 10 years?

    --
    This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!