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Gene Therapy Ages Human Cancer Cells in Lab
mattr writes "Korean scientists are the first in the world to selectively age off and kill human cancer cells, by injecting a gene that suppresses telomerase, a cancer-specific enzyme that normally makes cancer cells immortal by protecting the telomere tips of their chromosomes. The telomere length modulation mechanism was found by two scientists from Yonsei University and colleagues at U. Central Florida, and is reported in the April 1 issue of Genes and Development magazine."
To be fair, fetal tissue research has not been blocked. Only federal funding thereof - privately funded research may proceed unabated.
I think the real problem is the insertion of this gene into cells in general. Unless the technique is 100% efficient (all the cancer cells are treated), the tumor is going to just grow back again.
Using a virus to infect cells wouldn't work because any further doses of the virus would be less effective due to immune responses. Even when just using liposomes (spherical containers made up of phospholipids) carrying the antitelomerase gene to transfect the cancer cells, the efficiency would only be about 50% max. This means that only 50% of the cells would get the gene, while the remaining will still be untreated. In this situation, the transfected cells will die off due to the effect of this new anti-telomerase gene, but the untransfected ones will have a selective advantage and take over, making the tumor continue to grow.
I honestly hope some moderator mods this up fast. I'm a grad student working on this very thing so I'd like to hope I know something about it... When Dolly was first cloned we all thought telomeres were the key to keeping clones alive longer. So when Dolly was made as a clone the nucleus was injected into an oocyte that had telomerase activity that restored Dolly's telomeres (read: Dolly had normal telomeres). Yet Dolly displayed many diseases and phenotypes that old sheep normally would. The obvious conclusion, there are other factors that we don't know about that contribute to both aging and death. Please please please don't think telomerase is the key to immortality and the cure to cancers. Yes most cancers eventually gain telomerase activity but this isn't some magical target for immortality and cancer cures.