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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.
The bad news is you have cancer. The good news is you have HIV!
If you're gotten rid of 80% of the virus, you might not want to market it as "derived from HIV". Really.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
...Smoking cures cancer, too!
Do we really want to turn our bodies into a battlefield for germ warfare?
hack a day
I think I'd go with the carrots. I dunno, maybe I'm just weird.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
The microscopic version of Alien Vs. Predator
The cure for HIV might be... Cancer?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
we could find a way to use SCO agianst the MPAA...
"I prescribe disease-riddled hookers. Take one after every meal."
The coolest voice ever.
And the cure for HIV is Heart Disease!
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
I saw this on Google News this morning and wondered why Slashdot hadn't picked up on it already. As soon as I read the headline and the article, I began to wonder... How safe is this to do this research?
I'm not talking about the safety of recipients once this goes into the real-world (although that can be alarming), but about the research itself.
I'm pretty far removed from science in any practical setting, but what are the procedures for this kind of research? I've seen too many movies like 28 Days Later to not imagine some accident or oversight to cause some sort of mutant airborne HIV.
Also, does HIV even infect mice? I know there's a human/ape HIV and a feline HIV but I had not hear of mice HIV. Think of some sewer rat biting you...
That's just my mid-day alarmist self. Note I'm not against the research, just wondering about it...
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
So when this hits the market, will HIV be cheaper in Canada than the US?
www.kiwilyrics.com - a wiki for lyrics
I knew this girl in college that did amazing things with candles and vegetables, including carrots. I know for a fact she won't die of cancer. She OD'd in '86.
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
After the gorillas kill the crabs sent to kill the herpes sent to kill the flu sent to kill the acne sent to kill the hiv sent to kill the cancer, they'll just freeze to death once winter comes.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I guess as long as they take care of the immunodeficency part, that might not be so bad. Wouldn't want to live in a bubble now would we.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template =Aids&slug=New+HIV+strain+found+in+NY&id=68437&cal lid=1
implies that HIV is becoming stronger at a time when we want to spread it by calling it a cure. I guess if you die early of the new more virulent HIV then you don't have to worry about cancer.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
qed
Fleur de Sel
Doesn't work. Your head stays alive for a few seconds and boy does it hurt.
Totally offtopic, but your joke made me think of another I heard somewhere.
A guy goes to the doctor about a problem he's having. After a thorough examination, the doctor says to the patient, "I have good news and I have bad news."
"Well doc, let me hear the good news first.", says the patient.
To which the doctor responds, "Well, the good news is, we're going to name a disease after you!"
Even doctors and nurses who are not focused on research but who are focused on caring for HIV patients are, in my opinion, heros. They are willing to accept the risks that others shun. There have been occasional stories of nurses who accidentally prick themselves with needles used on HIV patients. Memory tells me that nurses dealing with high-risk patients are prescribed AZT in order to prevent infection. Can anyone confirm my memory?
Do all viruses mutate? I thought many did not...if some don't then couldn't this particular strand be modified so it doesn't mutate?
Just seems to me that if that were really a big problem they wouldn't even be working on this.
I'm not gay, my cock sucking is for medicinal purposes only.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but don't we use viruses as vectors all the time? Like in vaccines?
COMPUTER! Whatever happened to Blueberry Muffin?
Would this new strain of HIV be infectious?
I'd presume it'd have to be. It must reproduce inside the body to hunt down and kill the cancer.
It'd probably also be a hard thing to sell, if you could get it by screwing someone else who had it.
Now they're just showing off.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
"Hey, Nice boots. Wanna fight cancer?"
It' would be just our luck that in the remaining 20 percent lurks HIV"s ability to mutate and unleash some other horror. But hey, I guess turning one "enemy" of mankind against another enemy. I guess the guys working on this know the risks... so hey.
I hope this holds significant promise, but considering this on the heels of the resistant HIV strain discovered/found in New York recently, it's just not the right time for PR spin on virii...
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Gene therapy use lentivirus-based (HIV) vectors for quite some time now; it's nothing new really; a marketing team found the 'Cure Cancer with HIV!' twist interesting I guess.
When pseudotyped with the right envelope, these virus can infect efficiently any type of cell. They can also transduce non-dividing cells, which is usefull. They lack almost every gene of HIV; they retain certain structures which allow packaging of the genome in the virus and the viral promoter, but that's about it. Viruses are packaged in special cell lines containing the viral components on plasmids most of the time, and preparations are tested for recombinants. Its the best technology out there, but its nothing new, really.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
they are already reporting success on living creatures
IANAB but scientists cured cancer in lab rats years (literally) ago. i'm not saying this isn't a breakthrough, but you need to take this news with a grain of salt.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" seems like a good fit in this instance. Then again, your mileage may vary.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
They would never allow any vaccine if they were that superficial ... I hope they just evaluate the benefit/risk ratio as they are supposed to.
But seriously, if it was that or death by cancer, which would you choose? I think a lot of people would go with this in medical trials even if the FDA didn't pass it.
One good turn - gets all the covers.
That will be an interesting cell picture - an HIV cell with a carrot cell attached to it...
Dunno - if cancer victims knew that catching the mutated form of HIV might cure them, they might be rutting in the streets.
Huh? And the flu shot you take is not a virus eh?
Perhaps someone out there can provide some insight for those of us not in the know. Lets assume for a second that they reach an acceptable level of confidence that this turns out to be an effective strategy for battling Cancer (and also that they can ensure that the HIV virus doesn't harm the patient). How long does it generally take for a strategy such as this to reach Cancer patients (and i don't mean as test subjects)?
Are you for real? You think somebody is going to invent a cure for cancer, and the FDA would dare ban it? If you thought the black market for viagra was bad, it would be nothing on this.
If you have inoperable brain cancer and given the option to die in about a month or a 1% chance at the treatment mutating into HIV...
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Death! That's right folks, those who die are 100% of the time spontaneously cured of all forms of cancer. Research suggests that death may also be the answer to several other of lifes problems, including but not limited to, Valentine's Day depression!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Genetically modified cells and viruses often mutate. scientists aren't certain, but they suspect that modification produces a less stable genetic code. But we are getting better at producing more robust modifications.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Episode 238: The Mansion Family
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
On the other hand, HIV mutates very rapidly, so attempts to control the cure, say, by having it die off when there are no more defective genes to rewrite might well fail (as any viruses that mutate in a way to work around the die-off mechanism would reproduce rapidly).
At least HIV mutate a lot, As Far As I Remmember. Also the cold virus (grippe?) mutate a lot this why you have to vaccinate every year AFAIR.
mutability of influenza
some propaganda but also speaks of HIV mutability. I did not have time to search for more HIV article but google is your friend.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
chemotherapy - is just poison. it works because the cancer cells absorb the poison much quicker than normal cells.
radiation therapy - again, radiation by itself is bad.
most over the counter acne treatments - are just some form or acid that kills the bacteria on the skin
As for reengineering a virus to take on something else, while facinating, its hardly a new idea. If you are interested in this sort of thing and haven't read Orson Scott Card's Xenocide (part of the Ender Series), you might check it out.
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).
So "scientists" is capitalized now?
I guess that's fair, but not everyone believes in science so it might upset some people.
Direct away from face when opening.
Using HIV's replication machinery as a vector seems risky to me as well. An adendovirus ended up deadly (1 person) as a vector in a previous trial. Imagine what could happen with a highly unreliable machinery like HIV has...
I can see it now. New bar pick up lines:
"No baby, we don't need to use a rubber, I gots da ANECDOTE in there, baby!" *zip*
*shudder*
They loved to push HIV and Aids as a desease that God sent to punish the immoral. Now that it could be altered to fight canser, does it mean that God created the desease and made it spread so we can put a lot of resources at it and find a way to turn it into a force for good? God expecting us to do good things it seems a bit far fetch.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The researchers programmed the altered virus package to attack a protein on the cancer cell surface called p-glycoprotein, which causes problems in cancer patients by shuttling cancer drugs away from the cell. In other words, p-glycoprotein causes resistance to cancer medication. Scientists could customize the system to target any protein on the surface of a cell, Chen said. He and his colleagues have seen success with about a dozen different molecules, including brain and other blood cells, he said.
Except for the last sentence, it makes it seem as though this is only a way to pave the way for more conventional treatments. The last sentence doesn't make sense to me, given the context. I can understand how the proteins on the surface of a cell could qualify as "molecules", but then the structure of the sentence makes it seem like they're calling brain and blood cells molecules:
He and his colleagues have seen success with about a dozen different molecules, including brain and other blood cells, he said.
I'm still waiting for a virus that attacks the actual cancer cells. I remember hearing something about it a while back, but then it seemed to die off. Anyone been following it?
What, like sexually transmitted cancer?
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Let's beta test this! You go first. ;)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
the success of this new treatment does not depend on morals.
which is more profitable, short term cancer treatment or long term hiv(n' hybrids) treatment.
Jesus, dude, your spelling is *atrocious*. I don't know if I'd trust a cure from someone who can't spell.
And the cure for Heart Disease is exercise, which means that we're all doomed.
The Medical Indu$try in America is founded upon the idea of maintain a large pool of "sick" people.
End of story.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Does the next step involve gorillas?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So to make sure that everyone becomes immune to cancer, they purposely 'infect' a few hot guys and chicks with this new HIV and tell them (and all the general public) to go out and get fscking!!
Pay girls to strip!
Finally, a sexually transmitted cure!
"*cough* *cough* Time to get my prescription refilled."
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Fetuses are, for the most part, tumors...
Pregnancy, the only STD with a 100% mortality rate!
The summary of the article (and many of the comments) would have you believe this is a potential "cure for cancer".
Melanoma is a subset of the set of all cancers - specifically, it is a form of skin cancer - more specifically, it is a cancer formed from the skin cells that give skin its pigmentation.
Melanoma is NOT *all cancers* - thus even if this modified virus will kill 100% of all melanomas and have 0% harmful side-effects this does NOT make it a "cure for cancer" - merely a "cure for a type of cancer".
The will need to generalize this virus to attack ALL cancerous cells, and NOT to attack any other cells.
Now, if you can work out how a virus can tell the difference between a cancerous cell and a normal but rapidly reproducing cell, you have a Nobel prize awaiting.
www.eFax.com are spammers
80% of the virus has been completely removed and it is just now a carrier. Besides it has got a sindbis cloak that affect only insects and birds, so I believe that the person vaccinated wouldn't contract HIV. Ofcourse there are chances of mutations but when the virus is so weak, its like 0.001%.
The FDA would have to be very politicaly sensitive and short sighted to make such a call. It's not as though the FDA doesn't understand disease, after all, yogurt contains active bacterial cultures, but they are good for you, so I don't see how a virus, much less one that has to be sexualy transmitted and has had 80% of its genetic material removed (TFA), would be too big a hurdle.
As long as they arent foolish enough to market it as modified HIV.
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.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Now where's that "+0 Creepy" moderation button?
:S.
It's 2am, and I did not need those images before going to sleep
Finished drug product take a long time sometimes as much as 10 years to come to the mass(sic) market. This could be potentially far longer since 1) this is not even a finished product only some research which might or might not pan out, have to be peer reproduced etc... 2) this is more than a drug, this is a retrovirus therapy and you bet the FDA and other local country equivalent will want to CYA since this is very novel.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
... that HIV appeared as a natural "evolution" in humans to fight the increasing number of "cancers", and that maybe the actual HIV pandemy is the result of humans actually "adapting" (as usual by letting the unprepared vast majority die and only let a few "super" humans survive) ?
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do we really want to turn our bodies into a battlefield for germ warfare?
In a war, the important thing is whether or not you win.
..is modify some form of cancer to attack HIV. IAMAD (I am not a doctor), but it seems to me they would both attack eachother, until one was eliminated. At that point though, the survivor would be A LOT weaker than it would've been otherwise. Or it could have the same effect as anti-biotics, and make the survivors stronger...hmm...any input guys?
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
And the cure for Heart Disease is exercise, which means that we're all doomed.
Oh really? Don't geeks have Dance Dance Revolution?
A vaccine is just a crippled or weak version of the same virus that triggers an immune response; this is quite different.
The article is proposing that a new virus would be intentionaly released into humans that would attack cancer cells.
Using a virus as a vector refers to inserting a payload into the viral sequence (the desired DNA or RNA), which then gets inserted into the cell's genetic sequence as the virus inserts itself.
So basically I think there's quite a confusion here. I mean, it sounds like we're using one enemy to fight another, but if we can figure out how to get HIV to fight cancer, this new HIV won't go out there and suddenly turn regular HIV into good HIV that kills cancer. In fact, I don't know if it's such a good idea to use one enemy to fight another besides the fact that it sounds ironic. I would've thought that HIV would be one of the worst candidates with its fast mutational rate and ability to attack T-cells making it extremely dangerous. Obviously though, there must be some properties of HIV that make it a good vector in this case.
When I first read crabs I thought about the kind that have pinchers and live in the ocean...
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
I take it you must be speaking out of your own experience.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Finding willing patients will not be difficult due to the unfortunate fact that cancer can get so bad there is no turning around. Patients are most often willing to try anything as a final act of desperation.
Like they say in South Park "Simpsons did it". I recall Mr. Burns going to the Mayo clinic and finding out he has every disease known and unknown to man, it's just that they are all existing and trying to get through the door together it's just that they are all existing and trying to get through the door together in something the doctor's call "Three Stooges Syndrome".
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Why didn't I think of pitting my level 19 HIV against a mere level 16 cancer? I mean it has a level 7 interferon that gets +3 against malignant tumors and everything! Now if only I could get my tuberculosis to do battle with that cowardly gonnorhhea...
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Good news, we have a cure for your cancer.
Bad news, Bruno here is going to administer it.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Not exactly HIV, but some European scientists, particularly in the eastern block have been promoting the use of "phages", or general viruses for all kinds of things like killing bacteria and cancer. This idea was somewhat popular before the distillation of antibiotics in the 1930s, then retreated to the backwaters. Its been reviving as more bacteria develop resistance to all of the antibiotics.
Multi-drug-resistant HIV strain raises alarm
The coincidence that an engineered HIV against cancer comes around just when another HIV mutation appears on the wild... Where is my tinfoil hat?
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
On a side note, I just saw (briefly) a tv report that there is another strain of AIDS, and this one is immune to all the current drugs on the market. This is one persistant bastard.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Scientists could customize the system to target any protein on the surface of a cell, Chen said. He and his colleagues have seen success with about a dozen different molecules, including brain and other blood cells, he said.
I, for one, welcome our new brain cell-eating viral overlords.
Thanks a million. Push Start to replay.
Using one bad thing against another bad thing doesn't always work out too well.
Check your own....
Generaly the virus used is the Herpes Simplex A virus due to the ease of genetic packaging.
That said, no virus can be engineered to just attack cancer cells. Cancer cells are identical to non-cancerous cells in nearly all respects. The difference isn't in what they "look like" but what they do. Cancer cells do not (generaly) preform the task that their non-cancerous counterparts preform and instead divide rapidly.
So the way you target cancer is targeting dividing cells. Since cancer cells divide more rapidly than non-cancerous cells they die off in higher numbers. Lather, rise, repeat. Eventualy you're out of cancer cells.
The problem is that radiation and chemo make the patient very sick, and the dehydration effects tend to leave them weakened and unable to continue treatment. Chemo and Radiation thus become a balance between killing the cancer and killing the patient.
A virus could be different because unlike the injestion of poison (Chemo) or exposure to Radiation, the body does not generaly react to viral infection with vomiting and other nasty side affects.
The result is that you can get more cancer killing power per unit of patient killing power. This in turn translates to a higher cure rate for cancers.
This is why stem cells are so interesting for curing cancers. Got a brain tumor? Great.... we'll zap the shit out of it and toss in some stem cells... in a few days you'll have regenerated the brain tissue and you'll be good as new. That's science fiction today, but it's well within the realm of possibility in a few years.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Some chance of surviving is better than none, and even conventional treatments aren't without risk and if this new treatment has a increased chance of survival, then it should be looked into and not dismissed just because its uses HIV as a base to its structure
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Due out next month is a study that shows amazing results curing AIDS by implanting tumors into HIV positive patiences...
Much safer, not genetically engineered and at some point most of us have already been exposed to it. Already proving to be highly effective in human clinical trials. Slashdot has covered this before.
If anyone has ever seen the documentary, "The Gift," on the Sundance Channel, then you would know that there is an entire subculture in the gay community that is deliberately *trying* to get AIDS. Naturally, that's just a small segment of the community and they do not represent the gay community at large.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
scientists have been using virii to cure certain diseases. For example, bacteriofages are a rather nifty alternative to antibiotics.
So they've just taken this approach and used HIV as their "fage". "canceriofages" if you prefer.
HOWEVER... something scares me. What happens if the modified HIV's mutate for any reason? i.e. in a pantient who already has HIV? (Or i'm just thinking FUD?)
I say we need more studies on the possible side effects of this new cancer "vaccine". Just to be safe.
Is this really a solution or just another to prolong ?
Benjamin Arai http://www.benjaminarai.com
The reason that the adenoviral therapy killed Jesse Gelsinger is that they a) used a form of the virus that causes an immune response b) miscalculated the dose that they gave him and c) injected it directly into his hetatic portal vein (right into his liver).
This is a big problem with adenovectors - even in the best cases, patients will get at least a little sick from them. There are next generation forms that are less toxic, but these are still in development.
The real advance here was that they were able to combine the minimal "cell killing" aspect of HIV with another virus, Sindbis, to create a gene therapy that is relatively benign. They then modified that to target this to specifically kill a certain type of tumor. Previous attempts at HIV-based gene therapies proved to be too toxic.
Of course this was all in mice, which don't get AIDS from HIV. Whether it would in people is another story.
Just last Saturday every paper in Boston was crowing about a new killer HIV strain. It was on the nightly news as well. Now, you are saying that they have been doing research into using HIV as a cancer killer. Where did I leave my plastic bags and duct tape. I need to seal my house right now.
just as long it's not to be administered in suppository form.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
This research, while initially scary, is relatively safe due to the safeguards in place.
What you need to fear and what the general population doesn't understand is that chickens overseas are the perfect breeding ground for the next epidemic. At least one case exists where two people caught the flu bug from an infected person... who got it from a chicken.
Can you imagine what wouldve happend had that inital carrier been infected with, say, influenza? A nice, ripe virus that mutates every year and at the drop of a hat... now being fed genes that can expand it's payload a millionfold.
What do you think a flu vaccine would cost then? Assuming, of course, that the 20% mortality rate would be realistic...
Anyways- this research doesn't scare me. They aren't talking about mixing different diseases yet that have radically different vectors (think Clancy). But should they try to pull this stunt with common flu, chicken pox, small pox, HIV, bird flu, and rabies... and let them stew... then we're in trouble. Byebye world population...
(Argh! This feels like commiting suicide - requesting to mod down my own post... boo hoo. This happens for not RTFReplies like the one about the russians and the phages above).
Anyway, I just RTFA, and they say they removed 80% of the virus' code and used the rest as a carrier. As for the envelope, they used another virus' envelope to provide stability. Guess that takes the FUD away.
to the old Star Trek episode, Miri?
We inject the modified HIV virii with nano-time-bombs so that they "expire" before they can reproduce. In fact, it could be set up that the beginning of cell replication kicks off the "expiration" mechanism. But, IANAB.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Unfortunately a fellow geek has a case. Check out his weblog here.
Basically make sure you get all suspicious looking moles checked by your doctor before it's too late. Melanoma is only life threatening when it spreads beyond the initial site.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
well, if you had cancer i guess you might say what the hell, right? =) IMHO, while it may be scientifically novel, trying to explain to the average person why you're injecting them with HIV is like trying to explain DNA analysis to the OJ Simpson jury. It'll be something they'll have to downplay in the commercial drug..
You put two powerful enemies up against each other and hope they destroy each other. Right?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Wow, the modding on this stupid post of mine is exciting! +1 Funny and -1 Overrated are running neck and neck! GO +1 FUNNY GO!
Yes, Mondays are slow here.
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
The Cervical Human Papilloma Virus is sexually transmitted and causes cervical cancer.
At least, that's what the initial results of the studies show.
.
The human reovirus has shown dramatic promise in early oncolytic trials. Some great pictures can be seen here
The virus itself is non-pathogenic, lives in the bowels and lungs, and it's believed that most adult humans have been exposed to it during their lifetimes. Contrast this with HIV...
I've been watching this technology for a couple of years now it's slow going to get through clinical trials, but there's good evidence that reovirus may be able to treat 2/3 of all cancer out there , with little or no adverse side effects. Where it is not 100% effective, and radiation therapy is also prescribed, reovirus has been shown to be a good radiosensitizer.
Aside from reovirus, we're hearing more and more stories like this every year. I have a strong feeling that we'll have a cure for 90% of all cancer within the decade.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Given the life expectancy with either HIV or metastasized melanoma I'd take HIV any day of the week.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
It's not "heavy doses of radiation", it's radiotherapy. And no one takes "heavy doses of toxic chemicals"; they get chemotherapy. From now on "genetically altered HIV virii" will be known as Happy Fun Gene Therapy.
Genetically modified cells and viruses often mutate. scientists aren't certain, but they suspect that modification produces a less stable genetic code.
In the case of HIV, the virus is ALREADY extremely mutation-prone. If I remember correctly, the reverse transcriptase enzyme (the one that makes the initial-infection copy) averages more than one error per copy.
The virus compensates for this by having TWO copies of its genome - not so much for error correction as to have a significant chance of having a working version of each enzyme when it has infected a cell. (This also lets it form hybrids when two different versions infect the same cell.)
The result is that it actually evolves resistance to the antibodies the body throws at it during the course of the infection. And also that the infection is slow - but eventually overwhelms the immune system with a mob attack of divergent versions of the virus. A typical late-stage patient may have three or more viable variant populations, each capable of infecting other people.
If they ARE using pieces of the AIDS virus in their construct, I certainly hope one of the changes they made is replacing this error-prone enzyme with a more accurate one from another virus.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...is that the cure for cancer is sexually transmitted!*
Sure as hell beats chemo!
*Of coarse I didn't RTFA.
If I was presented with this situation, I would rather take my chances with traditional chemo or whatever. But a big giant HELL NO to this thing.
This is the worst idea I have ever heard of.
NO ONE is going to go for this except people that already have HIV.
How revolting... ick!!!
-"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.)
Well, that may be true for the dozens of pharmaceutical companies that made polio-reducing drugs, but Lederle, the company which marketed the (oral) polio vaccine made KILLING by selling 3 or 4 doses to all 6 billion people on the planet!
Same thing for an HIV cure/vaccine. Dozens of companies would no longer have a source of income, but the ONE company that creates (and patents) the vaccine will guarentee to sell 50 billion units over the next 40 years (assuming, like most vaccines, that it takes a few doses and booster shots to achieve the desired effect).
Plus, as a medical student, I happen to know for a FACT that people in my school are working on HIV vaccines. "They" aren't preventing this type of research.
The popularity of quack cancer remedies is directly tied to the general public not realizing this. If a cure could be proven to work--no matter if it were some kind of wonder-herb or "drug" or hitting yourself in the head with a brick--then not only would the FDA throw open the doors, but the guy who discovered it and the company who produced it would make a lot of money. You cannot expect to ban a cancer cure and have it stay banned. If plutonium was shown to cure cancer, then you'd just have to get your therapy on a military base.
It doesn't work in reverse: because people selling fake cancer remedies are making money, that DOESN'T mean their product works. Please, please, please, do your research.
If I could, I would give you a +5 for the truth.
My wife treats patients with Kemo, and the pain and suffering some of these people go through is off the chart. Many times she treats patients that they clinically know have zero percent chance of recovery.
Knowing you would die from the cancer well before the HIV would you not give it a shot? I think the overwelling answer would be Yes!
Unlike many procedures and treatments, this would be one in which there would not be any lack of willing participants.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
This genes that cause immunosuppression in unmodified HIV have been removed in this case and replaced with something else that sepcifically targets the cancer cells themselves irrespective of your natural immune reponse.
When they prefect the "targeting" bit with cell receptor proteins, I'm wondering what the next step will be. Maybe have the vector modify the genes in the cancer cell to stop producing the homones that cause unrestricted tumor growth? Or perhaps hijack the cancer cell to produce something like the chemicals used in a chemotherapy regimin within your own body; perhaps in smaller, less toxic doses that naturally taper down as the cancer cell count abates? Who knows?
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
You sure as hell don't care if your cure is derived from HIV, or what you need to do to get infected/cured.
Scientists could customize the system to target any protein on the surface of a cell, Chen said. He and his colleagues have seen success with about a dozen different molecules, including brain and other blood cells, he said.
They tested it on melanoma. Nowhere in the article does it say that the method only works for melanoma. Also, they imply that it could work on other kinds of cancer.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Required reading for internet skeptics
HIV CE?
HIV Embedded?
HIV Millenium edition?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Skinner:
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa:
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner:
No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa:
But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner:
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa:
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner:
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/5F22
They allowed someone who was HIV-positive onto the marrow donor registry? Or was it someone she knew personally? I can't register just b/c I've had cancer, and the cancer wasn't even in my bone marrow (though it's a type that could have been).
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Would unprotected sex spread the cure to others? That might hurt their revenue model if it was ever marketed.
People who have cancer serious enough to require this step are going to die, soon and painfully, from their cancer. In that position I know what my attitude would be: "Cure me or kill me. It's a win-win from my point of view." (paraphrasing House, M.D.)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
What a headline that would be.
HIV likes to mutate. So, what's the likelihood the cancer-fighting HIV variant would mutate into a deadly variant? If I had cancer, it might be worth it if there's a risk, but it's still good to know.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Whether this particular attempt works or not, the idea of introducing sexually transmitted vaccines/cures has a lot of interesting social implications. Not to mention a whole new breed of bad pick up lines.
Botox® is the commercial name for Clostridium Botulinum toxin -- a very possibly lethal one, too, if taken in appropriate doses.
Just in case the layperson didn't know what the active ingredient is, it's got a self-explaining "*TOX" in its name. Now, that doesn't sound very reassuring, right?
However, its name hasn't prevented it from becoming one of the most popular drugs in the US at the moment, with people paying outrageous money for a very simple injection - of a poison. There are even (mentally ill|desperate) people resorting to homemade products and ending up in intensive care units, if not dead. All this to be given poison and iron out a few wrinkles?
I guess this shows that when there's both a scientific (and marketing?) interest, doctors and media are more than able to convince their patients that a "poison" or dangerous substance is for their good (looks.)
No, we're not all doomed - if all slashdot users were to disappear I think human reproductive rates would continue essentially unchanged.
Zombies are a major health risk. Their predilection for eating brains makes them an ideal vector for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, AKA Mad Cow Disease, thanks to the bizarre bits of protein known as prions.
Poor old woman, I think she'll die.
Didn't they basically rubberstamp a drug with an 80% success rate against leukemia a while back? They're not evil, just beurocratic.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
if the payload has been removed (not disabled), how could it mutate into something dangerous?
"Sir, I've got bad news. You've got cancer and Alzheimer's."
--"Well at least I don't have cancer!"
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
there's a 72 hour window with a ~90%+ success rate on stopping the infection. doctors/at-risk professionals have been using it for years...down side is that it's basically the same course of drugs you take for the real thing and lasts at least a month. not fun side effects either. i had a possible exposure once, odds of 1/500, declined the cocktail.
It is important to note that Melanoma is one form of cancer (it is a skin cancer) http://www.melanoma.com/melanoma/isMelanoma/index. jsp. It is misleading to suggest this represents a possible solution to all types of cancers.
New-Kew-Lar?
New-Que-Ler?
New-Clear?
Anyway...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Diagnosis: Patient has [insert disease]
;P
Prognosis: Not good
Action: Kill patient
Result: Patient no longer has [insert disease]
Victory! Just like Iraq!!! LOL!!!!111
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
They are taking a form of the HIV virus and wrapping it inside a virus wrapper of a virus that is carried by BIRDS AND INSECTS! Imagine if they made a mistake...you could potentially have a version of the AIDS virus that could be transmitted by insects or worse yet...spreadable by birds...undercooked poultry could have a whole new problem!
Sorry to get all pedantic.
you had me at #!
HIV has many properties that might be desirable for gene delivery. And by the time we cure HIV, we'll probably know more about it than almost any virus. So it is fairly inevitable that it will eventually be engineered into a therapeutic agent.
....so ask your doctor today about cancerex! (may cause headache, nausea... and long, slow, death.)
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're
overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese
needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous
type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around,
the gorillas simply freeze to death.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Although it would kinda suck to find that the HIV stuck around even after its job was done. Eventually everone would have it.
Actually, this would probably be a good thing. First off, I have to belive that the first thing to go in that 80% of genetic material removed, was the part that makes HIV such a problem. Second, even if part of that was left, the virus is designed to only target cells with a particular protein structure, one that is basically unique to cancer cells. So, assuming that we all got "infected" with this virus, via the normal HIV means, this would mean that we all become immune to the types of cancers that carry this particular protein. (Except slashdotters, of course, they would never get "infected")
The guys working on this stuff are pretty smart, if the average slashdotter can think of the problem with giving people the HIV virus, I'm sure one of the researchers came up with it, and worked out a solution before UCLA's gene therapy lab opened its collective mouth.
This sounds very promising, if it does turn out to kill several cancers, not have any really bad side effects, and be transmitted via sex; imagine how much good it would do. They would simply have to give the virus to a part of the population, and then just left those people pass it along. And think of the new pickup line, "Hey baby, want to get vaccinated?"
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Can we cure italian driving with russian car technology? Windows XP? How would you cure XP? Can anyone else think of self cancelling technologies?
Its later than you think.....your watch has stopped.......
Messing with an already deadly and tough virus is dangerous. Isn't there recent news of a new strain of HIV spreading now?
It does sound promising for the fight on cancer but very dangerous too.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Normally I don't reply to AC posts as they usually are useless, but in this case I just had to inform
Many retroviral sequences have become permanently integrated into the human genome as human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs.
Linux at home
If you can spread treatments through a virus, you can "seed" virus-spreaders with those treatments, or even vaccines.
Imagine the day when you can go out and pick up a hooker, and gain immunity to various diseases.
eh... wouldn't the average reproduction rate (or x/1000) increase?
Next we'll get an article saying "Jumping off a building may kill cancer".
Thinking Avian, meant Asian ... sorry about that.
Recent market research shows the phenominal popularity of words that connect with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. Furthermore, they also show the connection with immortality or avoidance of death by characters in those phenomina.
As such, the best possible name is Darth Voldemort's Precioussss One Ring Remedy.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Sorry, that's not a "paper" and there is no evidence, just random, lunatic assertions. (Did I just state the obvious?)
The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS (National Institute of Health):
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm/
Hmm.... be nice to see one electron microscope picture of the organism... "HIV".
Are you the only person on the planet who hasn't heard of Google?
Retard.
The first thing that hit me was wouldn't this be an argument that HIV really is a manmade virus released into the wild by an accident. One can speculate that it could have been an experimental cure fore cancer.
How this thread turns into Conspiracy Theory Galore. Why can't someone mention HIV without the woodwork squeeking?
Doctor: We call it, "Three Stooges syndrome".
Mr. Burns: So, what you're telling me is...I'm indestructible.
Doctor: Oh, no no. Even a slight breeze could...
Mr. Burns: Indestructible.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Melanomas metastatize very easily and kill you effectively. But since they're on the skin(mostly), they can be spotted early. Only, (and i'm not a doctor)
- they are often allowed to evolve for a long time. It's just a little spot that 'changes' a bit, and you 'd feel ridiculous if you go to a doctor with it.
- I think the width of a melanome is not such a big factor for assessing risk, but the thickness is. The signal to go to a dermatologist is a nevus that "changes".
- not all skin cancers are melanoma. Most skin cancers are a spinocellular carcinome, less lethal, and basocellular carcinome , which eats away locally but does not 'travel'. You really need a lot of dedication to have that last one kill you.
Why is the body good at dealing with things like colds, but can't seem to handle things like common bacterial STDs? Or, is it actually good at dealing with them, but occasionally runs into a strain it can't handle and which then causes symptoms?
Yeah, that was a typo ... sorry about that.
It was someone she knew personaly.... an older sister I think (imagine being her parrents... I don't know how they dealt with it).
As a cancer survivor myself, I know where you're coming from. Though... I can see why they wouldn't want a leukemia patient giving blood/marrow!
I'm trying to think of a cancer that isn't in the marrow by default but can show up there easily short of matastization and I'm coming up blank. What did you have?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
It's very on topic. There's a lot of fear about using a virus as frightning as HIV to fight cancer. I'm simply pointing out that I've known people who've chosen to be infected with live, real, deadly HIV rather than submit to a death from cancer. Effectively staving off death for 10+ years.
Would people use a modified, assumed harmless type of HIV to fight cancer? If they'll willingly give themselves a full blown and deadly strain of the virus to buy 10 more years you can be damn sure they'll try a supposedly neutered version.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
The good news is you have cancer, and we can cure it.
The bad new is you're going to get a rather painful series of injections from Sid here...
Do check out your moles. If you have lots of them, photograph them regularly to check if they are growing. If they are growing, have them cut out, ASAP.
(I've had about 9 moles surgically removed in the last few years... the scars are a bitch, but when moles decide to start mutating into funny shapes because they are bored with being round, well, cut me up doc!)
Hodgkin's lymphoma. Getting into the bone marrow doesn't really count as metastasis in lymphomas, since the bone marrow is sort of part of the lymph system, or something... But most of the time it stays in the lymph nodes themselves.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Reminds me of the episode on the Simpsons with the run away lizard population.. Skinner: "Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend." Lisa: "But isn't that a bit shortsited? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?" Skinner: "No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards." Lisa: "But aren't the snakes even worse?" Skinner: "Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat." Lisa: "But then we're stuck with gorillas!" Skinner: "No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
So scientists have been able to isolate HIV now... That clears some things up for me (FARK lead me astray).
And HIV definately leads to AIDS...
http://www.duesberg.com/books/pdbinvent.html
Well, good to clear that up then.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Sorry, the cure for Heard Disease is good excercise, not epileptic-like spasms and shakes.
If you don't want to look like you're having a seizure, then just stay off the 10-footers. There are lots of 8-foot heavy songs, and Max 300 and LoM are still great fun on standard.
Furthermore, consider that many people routinely obtain Botox (Botulism Toxin) "treatment" for cosmetic purposes.
My father had a mole on his leg that got bigger and bigger. He fnially had it removed but no further treatment was ordered. It wasn't until he began fracturing vertebra in his back that someone figured out something was wrong (his Chiropractor of all things!). Seems he has cancer in his spine that started with *drumroll* the mole on his leg! The original doctor was quite difficult to work with and in the end was probably negligent but frankly pursuing him when you've got cancer eating your spine is sort of a low priority .
Needless to say - had my Father been more diligent and perhaps the Doctor a little swifter he'd be doing MUCH better than he is today. He's alive but it's not much of a life and certainly nothing like what he had before when he was healthy as a horse. Be careful out there...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Your comment made me think, and in fact question, how these scientists came to modify HIV to target cancerous cells. The research, it would seem to me (altough IANAGR), would be identical to vectorizing HIV (changing the HIV virus to target specific genecodes).
Perhaps what you are describing has already been done and the cure for cancer is just a nice byproduct of the original research?
My god, I do need a tinfoil hat, huh?
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Hardly. We've been using one strong enemy to fight another strong enemy for years. That's what chemotherapy and radiation therapy do. You try to kill the cancer without killing the patient.
A lot of our prescription medicines are actually poisons if they were in slightly larger doses.
I'm on three antibiotics right now and they are working on the infection, but, damn, I feel as bad as I've ever felt simply from the side effects.
Cancer cells do appear to be different from normal cells since they manufacture surface molecules at unusual rates. However, because these are molecules that appear in normal cells, viruses can't tell the difference between cancer cells and normal cells, so designing a virus to specifically target cancer cells would be difficult. But not necessarily impossible as you describe.
There is an interesting strategy in development that will allow viruses to specifically attack cancerous cells. Basically, find a molecule that cancerous cells will absorb in extraordinary quantities. These molecules are absorbed in extraordinary quantities because of the fact that cancer cells manufacture surface molecules at unusual rates. Then manufacture a virus that will only be active in the presence of that molecule. The virus will generally only grow in cancerous cells, eventually killing them off.
I don't know if this strategy is yet actively being used anywhere, or if it works as effectively as it sounds like it should. But once again, designing viruses to specifically attack cancerous cells is not impossible. Grandparent could very well be right.
Like fusion, the cure for cancer is only a few years away.
Don't worry, the cure for excersise is death, and we all get that eventually.
If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
Just think, you would be rid of cancer, and you wouldn't have to worry about dirty needles when shooting up with hobos.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Dearth of cancer in South Africa. Film at 11.
They say the mind is the first thing to
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/n m/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm1192.html
Lentiviral vector retargeting to P-glycoprotein on metastatic melanoma through intravenous injection
Kouki Morizono1, 2, Yiming Xie1, 2, Gene-Errol Ringpis1, 2, Mai Johnson3, Hoorig Nassanian1, Benhur Lee1, 4, Lily Wu3 & Irvin S Y Chen1, 2, 5
1 Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
2 UCLA AIDS Institute, University of California, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
3 Department of Urology, University of California, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
4 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
5 Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to Irvin S Y Chen syuchen@mednet.ucla.edu
Targeted gene transduction to specific tissues and organs through intravenous injection would be the ultimate preferred method of gene delivery. Here, we report successful targeting in a living animal through intravenous injection of a lentiviral vector pseudotyped with a modified chimeric Sindbis virus envelope (termed m168). m168 pseudotypes have high titer and high targeting specificity and, unlike other retroviral pseudotypes, have low nonspecific infectivity in liver and spleen. A mouse cancer model of metastatic melanoma was used to test intravenous targeting with m168. Human P-glycoprotein was ectopically expressed on the surface of melanoma cells and targeted by the m168 pseudotyped lentiviral vector conjugated with antibody specific for P-glycoprotein. m168 pseudotypes successfully targeted metastatic melanoma cells growing in the lung after systemic administration by tail vein injection. Further development of this targeting technology should result in applications not only for cancers but also for genetic, infectious and immune diseases.
To have cancer cure HIV and we're good to go.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Could you clear that up a little? How is that treatment done and what are the effects of this? If that may be a silver bullet, please let us know. Illegal or not, but if I knew a cheap and substantial cure for every HIV+ in the world, I would go to prison *and* hell to make it known to everyone...
So Duesberg is just crazy/wrong then.
Both, actually. I should know - I work in his department. I've heard some ridiculous crap come out of his mouth that makes it clear he hasn't been paying very much attention to the field of molecular biology. Some of his statements about cancer are even worse than his HIV theories. I feel really sorry for the undergrads he teaches (the grad students TAing usually have to cover for his incompetence).
So scientists have been able to isolate HIV now...
And have for years, despite what certain idiots claim. Even Duesberg agrees that HIV has been isolated - he just doesn't think it causes AIDS.
I don't know why she swollowed the fly...
No SIG for you!
er, swallowed
No SIG for you!
I'm not all that impressed by a "cure" that uses HIV. Both in that I don't trust it to be safe, but also in that there has already been knowledge of a much safer virus that can cure cancer for several years. At first glance one might think that we don't already have the older cure since it's naturally occuring and so the medical industry can't patent it and make millions from everyone who needs it, but look at other recent patents for naturally occuring things argues against that. Sure, with all of the different cancers we may need more than one treatment, but why does there not seem to be lot of research on this promising approach that might give us one real cure rather than tinkering with something as dangerour and unstable as HIV?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The scientists also inserted a glowing firefly protein into the virus to track its progress. They used a light-detection "cooled charged-coupled device," or CCCD, camera to look at the glowing protein inside live mice. Because the protein was attached to the gene therapy, the researchers could see that the treatment had hit its mark.
First, what freaking protein are they talking about? Luciferase (a non-fluorescent enzyme) does come from fireflies, but you can't visualize it without luciferin, and it doesn't seem reasonable to pump a mouse full of luciferin for visualization. I'm thinking it was more likely Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which comes from a jellyfish, not a firefly. And it really makes no sense at all to say that a protein is attached to a gene therapy. Here is a paper about using luciferase, but I don't see any mention of using it in vivo in mice.
Also, both luciferase and GFP produce green light, which is readily absorbed by tissue. If it were infrared, it would be more believable. Maybe they removed the tumors and put sections into dishes of luciferin? Hard to say with such scant information.
To answer your original question about whether the virus actually attacks cancer cells, well, cancer is a class of illnesses. Generally one of the important regulatory proteins is screwed up by DNA damage, so the cells become immortal. Depending on the mechanism by which the cancer became immortal, the treatment will vary. Cancer cells are totally screwed up. They have indeterminate numbers of chromosomes, they overexpress certain proteins by the truckload, and some of them (such as the HeLa cell line, named after the dead woman from whom they were taken, Henrietta Lacks) can be easily cultured in vitro. The article specifically mentioned metastisized melanoma, which I guess overexpressed this p-glycoprotein. You'd have to change the target to be appropriate for the type of cancer.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
My grandfather unfortuntately is out of options. He's done with Chemo and the cancer is still there. He has no options left except to live out what little time there is left. But if this really does help cure the cancer. I think he just might consider trying HIV instead of cancer.
You will probably die of a heart attack before you even get cancer.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
My mistake. It is perfectly fine to use luciferase / luciferan for live-animal imaging. The company Xenogen seems to specialize in the field. I guess they do inject the mice with luciferin, and I guess the photons are able to get outside of the mouse tissue. At least some of the photons.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
I do agree that the article is badly done, but Wired isn't really known for its rigor.
I would think that a more effective approach to the cancer problem would be preventitive gene therapy. Since cancer seems to be genetically caused by improper oncogene coding, I would like to believe that the retrovirus (HIV) could be use to correct the genetic problems. I know we're a long way off from this (considering most of the oncogenes have not been properly identified), but I'm sure this will be the future (rather than using HIV to cure AIDs) By the way... oncogenes are those oncogenes control proper cell division (when the oncogenes are messed with, cancer cells result)
Still, it's neater than futzing around with TNF-alpha antagonists and NF-kappa-b inhibitors (in a mad scientist kinda way).
"I had HIV therapy, want me to cure YOUR cancer?"
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
HIV will only cost $5.95*http://www.giantmicrobes.com/professional/hi v.html
*=plus S+H
You could've saved yourself a few bucks... Stepmania http://www.stepmania.com./
Also common in AML treatments if I'm not mistaken. You're right on this, but I pointed to brain tumors because the brain is, today, one of the most difficult portions of the human body to do anything to without permenently screwing it up.
Your point is well taken though, stem cell transplants are saving lives today.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Burns: Well, doc, I think I did pretty well on my tests. You may shake my hand if you like. Doctor: Well, under the circumstances, I'd rather not. Burns: Eh? Doctor: Mr. Burns, I'm afraid you are the sickest man in the United States. You have everything. Burns: You mean I have pneumonia? Doctor: Yes. Burns: Juvenile diabetes? Doctor: Yes. Burns: Hysterical pregnancy? Doctor: Uh, a little bit, yes. You also have several diseases that have just been discovered -- in you. Burns: I see. You sure you haven't just made thousands of mistakes? Doctor: Uh, no, no, I'm afraid not. Burns: This sounds like bad news. Doctor: Well, you'd think so, but all of your diseases are in perfect balance. Uh, if you have a moment, I can explain. Burns: Well ... [looks at his watch]
[the Doctor puts a tiny model house door on his desk]
Doctor: Here's the door to your body, see? [bring up some small
fuzz balls with goofy faces and limbs from under the desk]
And these are oversized novelty germs. [points to a
different one up as he names each disease] That's
influenza, that's bronchitis, [holds up one] and this cute
little cuddle-bug is pancreatic cancer. Here's what
happens when they all try to get through the door at once.
[tries to cram a bunch through the model door. The
"germs" get stuck]
[Stooge-like] Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Move it,
chowderhead!
[normal voice] We call it, "Three Stooges Syndrome."
Burns: So what you're saying is, I'm indestructible!
Doctor: Oh, no, no, in fact, even slight breeze could --
Burns: Indestructible.
Maybe they can use this to get rid of these damn midichlorians. I am getting pretty damn tired of lightning bolts flying out of my hands.
Don't you mean Noo-ku-lar? Not quoting anybody in particular...
The flu shot is a killed virus. You cannot get the flu from it, but it is made from "chopped up" flu virus. Flumist nasal spray is a weakened (and cold-adapted) virus. You get slightly sick from it. I took it a couple months ago, since I work as a med student in a family med clinic and they were out of the shots.
I don't see any fingerdance pads there o.O
Stepmania's quite fine, and in fact, I play both. More variance that way. I prefer playing on a console, though. Computer's for work and pretending to work (see: Slashdot). No, I don't mod my consoles. Laziness, mostly...
I sing the doggie electric!
Why not engineer different viruses to attack different cancers?
I think this is a great idea, but it does worry me in that it would be so specialized...what would happen to rare cancers who might benefit from a more universal treatment (different chemos, different types of radiation, etc.)? Without a huge increase in cancer research funding, I would be nervous about something that might divert money from research that could help more than one cancer type, and thus more people. (I'm speaking as someone with a rare cancer with currently barbaric modes of treatment, ie amputation of hip and leg, parts of lung, etc...).
It's a sticky question, though, because everyone wants cancer to be irradicated. Even if only the "popular" types of cancer can be treated with a virus of this sort, that would be best for society as a whole. And maybe then there would be money and attention freed up for the rest of us once those cancers are gone.
Of course, if there was a big increase in funding for these projects in addition to current research on chemo agents, for example, this wouldn't be much of an issue.
To get back to the article, if this could be made to apply to other forms of cancer, I think it would have huge benefits. Some cancers (like mine) are chemo-resistant...having something that opened up the option of chemo could literally mean the difference between life and painful death.
Just my random thoughts on the issue...
Voices--Art, Poetry, Photography
I have heard of the Perth group many, many times - every AIDS denialist posting on Slashdot thinks they're being really insightful by mentioning them. And they have next to zero scientific credibility; some of the claims I've read have been just dumb. Why should I take anything they say seriously? Especially when I just posted evidence that contradicts what you were saying? And what's your expertise in molecular biology that led you to critically re-evaluate the HIV/AIDS hypothesis?
I have a BS in mol. bio and am working towards a PhD, so I'm not some ignorant idiot who believes everything a scientist tells me. I've read the claims of the denialists, and they're full of holes.
moderated as troll? whatever.
Patent #6,846,670: Genetically engineered herpes virus for the treatment of cardiovascular disease
Courtesy of Patently Silly
And the cure to exersize is jolt cola, that causes cancer...
And the circle is now complete.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
The way I see it, before I die, that statement will be roughly equivalent to "using the wheel as a mode of transportation seems risky to me as well".
Soon replication machinery such as this will be the fundamental principle of all kinds of medicine and, increasingly, tools.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
hmmm.. should i wear the black shoes, or the white? and should i bring my cancer to the party, or my hiv..?
A man goes to a doctor for his regular checkup. The doctor tells the man that he has good and bad news. The man is greatly excited when the doctor tells him that his penis will be 3 inches longer and an inch wider. Naturally, the man asks the doctor what the bad news is. He replies, "malignant."
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
To mix this with the strategy of using one strong enemy against another is brilliance!
Ever heard of phages?
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
That was +1 FUNNY
Does it go on forever?
"We've got good news and we've got bad news"
"Whats the good news?"
"We cured your cancer"
"The bad news?"
"You now have HIV"
Have you metaroderated recently?
Well, if some Arab nutcase decided to attack Jewish people with this technology, he'd also kill most of the Arabs - they are the same genetically.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind.
Actually, my understanding was that they had an experimental vaccine, but no good way to test it on a large enough scale to really prove it works. I mean, who wants to be injected with bits and pieces of just about the deadliest disease known to man? It's very likely to be the sort of vaccine that gets injected into USAMRIID soldiers and pretty much no one else.
In any case, I believe that there have actually been two known cases of provably airbourne Ebola. The most well-known case involved a monkey holding area of sorts, in Reston, Virginia. They discovered that Ebola was being transmitted from cage to cage without any contact between the monkeys, everyone panicked, but then they later discovered that the strain couldn't infect humans for some reason. Several people were infected, but never displayed symptoms of the disease.
The other case involved a nurse in Zaire IIRC. The strain was named after her - Ebola Zaire Mayinga. Apparently this nurse ran around the city for a few hours while infected before they found her. Somehow she managed to fail to infect anyone, despite the fact that Ebola Zaire Mayinga is probably the nastiest strain of the virus that we currently know of.
I think it's safe to assume that Ebola Zaire, and especially the Mayinga strain are probably airborne, at least to a certain extent.
Also, I know for a fact, that your statement about the experiments is inaccurate. It's close, but not quite correct. What we have never seen is proof of airborne infection in humans in the wild. But this isn't much of a surprise -- the virus moves fast enough that, by the time you have competant observers, there's enough of the virus around that it's impossible to prove that transmission was airborne. In the lab, every single strain of Ebola has demonstrated itself to be capable of transmission by aerosols. And to the best of my knowledge, the experiments were reproduced. Check google scholar to be sure perhaps?
In any case, Ebola is a lot worse than you make it out to be, and even if it weren't airborne, the nature of crashing out is such that any lack of airborne ability would hardly slow the virus' spread much. When someone ejects infected particles all over you, some of those particles are going to end up in your eyes, nose, mouth, etc. You're a very lucky person if someone crashes out near you and you don't get infected.
But as others have mentioned, Ebola is incredibly rare. It kills far too effectively to really pose a epidemic-scale threat. Ebola has been the topic of numerous conspiracy stories as well as a Tom Clancy novel, video game, etc. It's a boogieman story meant to scare little children, really. The possibility of genetic modification has been brought up many times before, and usually with people being worried that Ebola might become more resilient and better able to infect via aerosol. However, the real threat would be someone modifying the virus to have a longer dormancy period.
Is this really a solution or just another to prolong?
In human medicine there is no such thing as a real solution, they are all "just prolongs".
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
The most well-known case involved a monkey holding area of sorts, in Reston, Virginia.
That strain of Ebola is harmless to humans. So who cares? The only real case was in a USAMRIID lab with the Zaire strain of Ebola. Quite pathogenic to humans! That is kind of scary but it has never been reproduced to my knowledge. Although neither can it be easily explained away.
The other case involved a nurse in Zaire IIRC. The strain was named after her - Ebola Zaire Mayinga.
WRONG. That is totally wrong. That nurse was in direct contact (duh, she was an African nurse working with Ebola patients) with the virus. There was absolutely no evidence of airborne transmission.
Apparently this nurse ran around the city for a few hours while infected before they found her. Somehow she managed to fail to infect anyone
Yes, that is because the only Ebola strain that is aerosol transmissable is the Reston strain which so far has only proven dangerous to monkeys.
The fact that that nurse was able to walk around a major African city for as long as she did and share a soda and a sandwich with someone and not transmit it to anyone are actually evidence of exactly the opposite. An aerosol infective virus would have been transmitted to someone.
Also, I know for a fact, that your statement about the experiments is inaccurate. It's close, but not quite correct. What we have never seen is proof of airborne infection in humans in the wild.
That is completely untrue. Where are you getting this from anyway? If you are talking about the Reston strain then who cares? That is not dangerous to humans.
to the best of my knowledge, the experiments were reproduced.
Bullshit. Go ahead and cite them then. And I'm sorry but Google is not in fact a research tool. About this kind of subject you will find mostly incorrect 5th hand sensationalized information based on works of fiction and lots of speculation filtered through many different people. Those are not facts.
In any case, Ebola is a lot worse than you make it out to be, and even if it weren't airborne, the nature of crashing out is such that any lack of airborne ability would hardly slow the virus' spread much.
"Crashing out" is not nearly as dramatic as you make it out to be. In fact not all Ebola victims die from blood loss. I can only hope that none of your "facts" are derived from The Hot Zone, because that was a work of complete fiction. There was almost nothing in that book that was not wildly exaggerated for dramatic effect. The descriptions of the way people died in particular were far more dramatic than in reality. Ebola just doesn't kill that way. That's not the reality.
It kills far too effectively to really pose a epidemic-scale threat.
Actually that's not true. Ebola victims can be infective and walking around for quite a long time. As long as a week or two. More than long enough to infect countless others if the virus were airborne infective. The main reason that Ebola is not a large threat even in Africa is that it can be stopped so easily with simple barrier nursing procedures as described by the CDC on their website. Every epidemic was simply a matter of primitive hospital conditions and lack of common sense.
However, the real threat would be someone modifying the virus to have a longer dormancy period.
Two weeks is more than long enough. If the Zaire strain could be modified to make it infective through the air, not just in one isolated lab experiment but in real world conditions, it could be an incredibly dangerous pathogen, and an excellent virus to use for terrorism purposes.
The problem with Ebola from a city wiping perspective is that it is just not infective enough. In fact it is actually surprisingly difficult to get.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Look in front of you. Fingerdance pad is between the Ctrl key and the 0/Ins key.
Another advantage of StepMania is you get to play songs that would never show up on the console versions.
You have to remember that the first machines were used almost exclusively in cancer wards, and at a time when radiation therapies were more prevalent and with more side effects than they have now. So I think the idea was to reassure patients that this was not some sort of whole body radiotherapy that would make them sick...
I'm having a flu right now so please excuse me if I don't get my math skills together right now... but 0.001%... doesn't that mean one in every 100'000 planes would crash? Damn right I am boarding that plane especially when you consider that the local mafia wants to shove some explosives up my arse. Never forget the threat cancer poses if you don't do anything about it. If you were dying from cancer and had the chance of either solving the problem or a 0.001% chance that it might get worse... I don't know if all else fails you can still buy a gun and end your life if it really comes to this worst case scenario. If it comes to my life I'd probably take a 50/50 chance.