The Cure for Cancer Might be: HIV

RGautier writes "Wired News has published that Scientists have successfully modified the AIDS-causing HIV in such a way that it can attack metasticized melanoma (cancer cells). The impact of genetic research on cancer research is in and of itself amazing. To mix this with the strategy of using one strong enemy against another is brilliance! Research will continue, obviously, but they are already reporting success on living creatures." Just think: between HIV and carrots we'll be all set.

Comments

Re:It will never see the light of market shelves .

[TGK]

What you're talking about is Class A Experimental Therapy. It's heavy stuff and ranks up there with "hell if I know, maybe this'll do something" as far as the wealth of medical knowledge associated with it.

As drugs and techniques prove themselves they move down the ladder until they're used to treat the general public.

Of course, patients are only give the option of highly experimental methods once the tried and true stuff has failed.

The only people exposed to this will be the ones who allready have a death sentence from their cancers.

Sometimes cancer forces people into rough decisions. A friend of mine chose to accecpt a bone marrow transplant from an HIV positive doner because it was her only chance to beat her leukemia.

She's doing fine now, but she's on AZT and all kinds of other antivirals now to stave off AIDS.

Re:Might want to downplay the HIV thing

[networkBoy]

While this may be good for curing cancer, I would fear if this tech got in the wrong hands:
"Scientists could customize the system to target any protein on the surface of a cell"
Target the protiens on a group of humans, Kurdish, Jewish, Korean, whatever. Many groups of humans have some genes that are particular to their genetic heritage. Target those geenes to make something worse, instant selective genocide.
-nB

Re:Is there any chance...

[jamesoutlaw]

This link has some interesting information about the origin of HIV... including this:

Three of the earliest known instances of HIV infection are as follows:

1. A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo
2. HIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.
3. HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.

Analysis in 1998 of the plasma sample from 1959 was interpreted5 as suggesting that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s, which was earlier than had previously been suggested. Other scientists have suggested that it could have been even longer, perhaps around 100 years or more ago.

Beneficial effects of smoking

[MillionthMonkey]

"When chronically taken, nicotine may result in:

• positive reinforcement
• negative reinforcement
• reduction of body weight
• enhancement of performance

and protection against:

• Parkinson's disease
• Tourette's disease
• Alzheimer's disease
• ulcerative colitis and
• sleep apnea.

The reliability of these effects varies greatly but justifies the search for more therapeutic applications for this interesting compound."

-"Beneficial Effects of Nicotine" (Jarvik, British Journal of Addiction, 1991)

Not listed here is an obscure type of stroke that occurs with less frequency in smokers.

I started smoking out of sheer desperation with ulcerative colitis about ten years ago. The ulcerative colitis went away, but then I was left with a disgusting two pack per day habit for two years that probably did more damage to my health. I should have tried chewing that gross nicotine gum instead. (Crohn's disease OTOH has a high incidence among smokers so it isn't exactly a total win.)

Re:Might want to downplay the HIV thing

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well no. You don't have to mix HIV and ebola to make ebola devastating. The problem with ebola is that it is SO simple it kicks every cell it invades into overdrive to produce more ebola. It has just enough proteins to latch onto a cell and do its job. By the time you realize you have ebola, you are as good as dead.

HIV is the opposite extreme. It's latency period is so long that someone will be infected for years if not decades before the infection is detected. HIV is a large, complex, and fickle virus.

There is already something airborne, virilent, and with a just short enough but just long enough incubation time. It's called influenza and it kills millions per year. And it has been killing people for as long as we have been keeping track of epidemics.