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Nanomaterials Used in Possible Cancer Cure
Moiche writes "Medical researchers at CalTech and the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles have successfully inhibited cancer growth in mice by wrapping engineered RNA in nanomaterials and introducing them into the bloodstream. Two polymers and a special coating allow the therapeutic RNA to enter the cancer cell and release the therapeutic RNA payload. The new technique has slowed or prevented the development of secondary tumors in lab mice with Ewing's sarcoma. Further testing is planned on humans, and with other cancers. The Diamond Age seems closer, day by day."
So now, nanobots not only can defeat the Borg, but they can also cure cancer. W00t!
A good friend of mine found out today that she has inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). I would like to belive that a technology like this could help her, but I don't think that she will ever get that chance.
This uses RNAi technology - that is the RNA they deploy is complementary to the RNA produced in Cancer Cells, and so they complement with the cancer RNA into a double-stranded piece of RNA - which screams virus - and the cell destroys it. Therefore stopping the growth of the cancer.
This method of using the nanomaterials to protect it and enable it to enter the cancer cells surely looks very promising!
"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand."
Today I've booked my pet mouse, muis in for surgery to remove her third tumour. The previous surgeries have been successful, but it would be ace not to have her go through a general anaesthetic again.
(I realise this is an important development for fixing human cancers, but as a pet owner - it would be great to have these working fixes for the little ones it's been demonstrated on!)
Mice may save mankind again!
The smallest buzzword ever created by Man
yes, becuase this makes the protein the way the body would have (or at least closer to it). what does this mean? basically, that it works better than just a protein.
Why not piggyback on nature and use some relatively harmless virus for transporting the RNA into the cells? Would it be too hard to create the virus with the RNA, or to grow the virus without it mutating into something not containing the RNA?
i just hope that microsoft doesn't answer that with. either Active RNA or RNA.NET just immagine if spammers get popups in your skin pigments!
It is well established that if one has a alkaline PH-balance it is impossible for cancers to form. Why this is necessary when simple nutrition and proper readjustment of PH will prevent cancer in the first place I am not sure, other than I suppose having people be healthy in the first place doesn't make money for pharmaceutical and medical technology developers, while high-tech developments of Rube Goldberg-type devices do.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
nanocancer has it's own government website.
I believe in this more than virus gene therapy.
You can't let the immune system interfere!
Good stuff. I keep up to date on this .
This discussion will, most likely, not really go anywhere. Slashdot simply doesn't have many persons these days who are particularly informed on the sciences. What this discussion will contain is:
- Two people who really and actually understand the science and make interesting deep posts
- 15 people who sort of kind of understand the science behind this and make comments which are interesting and good points-- but contain misinformed elements
- 30 people making jokes
Discussions on science.slashdot fall into two categories now: ones like this article; or stories that can be tangentially in some remote distant way linked to either the theory of evolution, the concept of global climate change, or research into stem cells. The former category acts as I have described above. The latter category is simply swamped by nothing but hundreds of comments from right-wingers ignorantly attacking the idea of science, and hundreds of left-wingers ignorantly defending the idea of science, with no room left for comments on the subject matter of the article itself. In either case it's something of a hunt to find those couple really ontopic posts, and very hard to tell the difference between the people who know their stuff and the people who only appear to.
Is there anything we can do about this? *Should* we do anything about this? I suppose we should just be grateful that at least there are those handful of decent posts in every science.slashdot article and the signal to noise ratio is better than at least, say, your average microsoft story on slashdot. However, I seem to remember a time that people on slashdot were nerds in the sense that they enjoyed seeking knowledge, and so knowledge about science was praised, singled out, and common. Now the slashdot readership is either simply apathetic toward science, treating it as something other people do-- or actively seems to view science as something dirty, and attempts to understand and effect the universe as human presumption. In either case there is little room or consideration left for a third category of persons.
OK, I'd love for there to be a cure for cancer, but I suspect that more likely this is just the perfect bunch of buzzwords to hype for funding, IPO or whatever. nanoxxx: tick; cure for cancer: tick.
The last cure-for-cancer stock I watched were Cell Pathways. Lovely rollercoaster stock. Perfect for pump and dump of IPO share options etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The other thing... WTF, its a mouse.
My family's dog died, he was a damn good dog, smart and with a lot of character, and I miss him. But he was getting old and if it wasn't kidney failure it would have been something else, soon, and I've accepted that. And there are people starving to death every day in Africa- and not to use that as an abstract rhetorical device, I've been there and seen them- shit, this nation needs to get a grip and get a fucking sense of perspective. They're just pets.
During our lifetimes, it will be extremely exciting to see all of this happen. The scary part is how far we take it. Bad things can come of it too.
Berto
It also only works on tumors which express a gene which normal cells don't. That's also not true for the vast majority of cancers that we know of.
The tricky part is that each individual cancer must have a particular treatment created for it. It's not a generic cancer cure, but rather one that can be targeted against certain very specific types of cancer. They'd need to know exactly what's genetically wrong with the cell in order to cure it.
Not only that, but if the iRNA sequence not only matches the problem RNA but also a healthy one, you could potentially be interfering with normal gene function. That's why they targeted Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that "provides a clear and unambiguous target".
Finally, this doesn't seem to actually cure the cancer, but rather puts it into submission. Think of the cancer cell's nucleus spitting out bogus RNA, only to be chopped up by iRNA that matches it. You'd need to take the treatment essentially forever. Drug companies could make billions.
If you even bothered to read the post, you'd see that this treatment has prevented tumor growth.
That's certainly positive evidence, if not proof. Used in combination with treatments like chemo, you've got a good regimen.
Normally, the idea of chemo is to hopefully kill cancer cells faster than they're being produced. Something like this could halt the production, allowing for much faster elimination of cancerous mass, and possibly even a reduction in chemo dose.
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Great links. Basically various groups of people trying to sell something and various other groups trying to shut them down.
Not exactly "research."
--MarkusQ
Strange that they are using PEO and cyclodextrin as a "encapsulating" polymeric source for the transferrin. I would think that PEO would be not very good choice for living cells (cancerous or non-cancerous). If the body needs to digest this polymer, PEO has a history of problems with its by-products. Most of the by-products are ethanol, which would kill the cells. Probably callogen or similar forms would be better. Perhaps, they are already using similar types of polymers.
Hey, the article say they were treating mice. I've heard plenty of these stories, I lost count years ago. Every month there's some fantastic new scientific development in cancer research, almost always involving mice or rats, or pigs or some animal other than human beings.
Cancer researchers should keep quiet till they've found a fucking cure. Frederick Banting didn't stir up media attention 20 years before he discovered insulin with crazy stories, "Hey, diabetics, just hold on for another few years.. I'm about to discover insulin. Hold Firm, stay resolute !!" No, He went public when it made a difference, instead of stirring up passion and speculation.
No, you just use RNA that compliments mRNA for some required housekeeping function.
The idea is that the nanomaterials are delivering RNA that compliments endogenous mRNA - the resulting double stranded RNA is degraded and the protein isn't made. I think TFA mentions that, and if it didn't it should.
Too late. They've been pushing for popups in another other organ for years.
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Just as a fyi, the press release for Hu et. al.'s research can be found at the American Association for Cancer Research proceedings page -- it's more technical than the Economist article linked above, but is quite informative.
Don't get your hope too high. There is no foolproof against tumor cells,yet. This method of deploying therapeutic RNA relies on transferrin of tumor cells. Sooner or later, tumor cells will develop mechanisms or mutations so that they will not rely heavily on transferrins.
Dude, do you realize that electronics 30 years ago were in their infancy? OOooh look, a transistor radio!
Nanotech will grow exponentially just like electronics (expect some Moore Law regarding nanotech to appear soon). Problem is, exponential growth rates are VERY SLOW on the beginnings.
But wait in 10 or 15 years when nanotubes manufacturing is completely understood and industrialized.
I can't believe that this comment was scored 5,Informative. It is totaly misleading. The RNA:RNA hybrid does not scream "virus". In fact it goes under the "virus radar" and does not elicit the interferone responce. A more acurate description would be that it hijacks a mechanism that is used in generation of small regulatory RNAs (micro or miRNAs) and results in cleavage of the targed. The biggest achievement of this research is the delivery system which looks very efficient and is the best alternative to virus vectors so far. As for the use of RNAi in any therapy, I have my reservations. The reason is that these RNAs can and do work as miRNAs and thus are not as selective towards their targets as people would like to think. As a result they will perturb the expression of multiple genes in addition to their target.
this is offtopic sure but i don't see how its a troll
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If I had mod points I'd mod you down purely because you cross-posted this information in the last few stories....
Not to mention the fact that noone really cares!
My Site, My Life
...But can these nanomaterials run Linux, that's the real question I think we're all asking ourselves.
What? You aren't?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Sorry, but this is standard molecular biology and polymer chemistry, the way it's been done for decades. It has nothing to do with "nanotechnology".
Nanotechnology, as in the Diamond Age, refers to a new class of self-replicating molecular devices. Nanotechnology was overhyped, has delivered no scientific insights, and has been a complete failure. That is why its proponents are now going around and trying to relabel work in material science and biology, work that happens to be at the right scale, as "nanotechnology".
Royal Rammond Rife Cured Cancer. if any body can post vaild docuemented evidence of why he never do it, I have famliy that have died from the big C, I understand the planet is over populated an all but it is a crime to hold back Rife technology, Please read the below, Please do your own research, Please don't post a stupid reply saying "do you think if we had the cure they would not release it". Any way the facts speak for them self, This guy was a proper scientist, able to work year after year, the bottom line he provided the goods was checked out as the real thing then burnt at the cross baby, We are never going to have the cure for Cancer because we all ready have the cure for cancer, they will lose lots of money on drugs (the main reason) and two too many people will start living and not dieing. Thanks and this thread was the reason I joined up, I have been injoying reading Slashdot for a couple of years now. Nig-Mcse nt4, counterstrike source player, waiting for Battlefeild 2, Injoy all scifi and tech, Royal Raymond Rife Edited by Jeff Rense 11-7-2 Imagine, for a moment, that you have spent more than two decades in painfully laborious research-- that you have discovered an incredibly simple, electronic approach to curing literally every disease on the planet caused by viruses and bacteria . Indeed, it is a discovery that would end the pain and suffering of countless millions and change life on Earth forever. Certainly, the medical world would rush to embrace you with every imaginable accolade and financial reward imaginable. You would think so, wouldn?t you? Unfortunately, arguably the greatest medical genius in all recorded history suffered a fate literally the opposite of the foregoing logical scenario. In fact, the history of medicine is replete with stories of genius betrayed by backward thought and jealously, but most pathetically, by greed and money. In the nineteenth century, Semmelweiss struggled mightily to convince surgeons that it was a good idea to sterilize their instruments and use sterile surgical procedures. Pasteur was ridiculed for years for his theory that germs could cause disease. Scores of other medical visionaries went through hell for simply challenging the medical status quo of day, including such legends as Roentgen and his X-rays, Morton for promoting the 'absurd' idea of anaesthesia, Harvey for his theory of the circulation of blood, and many others in recent decades including: W.F. Koch, Revici, Burzynski, Naessens, Priore, Livingston-Wheeler, and Hoxsey. Orthodox big-money medicine resents and seeks to neutralize and/or destroy those who challenge its beliefs. Often, the visionary who challenges it pays a heavy price for his 'heresy.' So, you have just discovered a new therapy which can eradicate any microbial disease but, so far, you and your amazing cure aren't very popular. What do you do next? Well, certainly the research foundations and teaching institutions would welcome news of your astounding discovery. Won't they be thrilled to learn you have a cure for the very same diseases they are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars per year to investigate? Maybe not, if it means the end of the gravy train. These people have mortgages to pay and families to support. On second thought, forget the research foundations. Perhaps you should take your discovery to the pharmaceutical industry; certainly it would be of great interest to those protectors of humanity, right? But remember, you have developed a universal cure which makes drugs obsolete, so the pharmaceutical industry just might be less than thrilled to hear about your work. In fact, the big shots might even make it certain that your human disease-ending technology never sees the light of day, by preventing it from becoming licensed by the regulatory agencies. Now, assuming your amazing cure is an electronic instrument, the only cost of using it is electricity. And it is absolutely harmless to patients, who can recover without losing their hair, the family home, and their life savings. So, with your technology, there
Not wishing to openly mock your post, but if you search on his name all your returns are sycophantic product sites with little or no technical content. Surely some rich devotee would have put up some cash for an independent research project? If you have a link to any independent research, please post it, as I'd like to read it.
I seem to recall reading somewhere ages ago about some banned weapon that focussed two beams of some EM at slightly different frequencies to set up some wierd harmonic at a point in the body to disrupt cell structure, so the idea that EM frequencies can knobble cells is not new to me but the idea that you hold on to a couple of electrodes, twist a dial to "Cancer" and nuke it seems a bit like theatrical hokum.
Your claim of "time-tested frequencies" doesn't really tally with one site saying: "Disclaimer: The Rife Store does not adopt or endorse the content of this web page or the web sites linked from this page and provides them for general information purposes only. Not intended to treat disease, support or sustain human life, or to prevent impairment of human health; for self-education and research purposes only."
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
Feed the mouse to the starving Africans.
(oooooooh, that was sick, but strangely amusing!).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Shampoo has "alkaline PH-balance" and is also free of canerous tumors!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The Diamond Age seems closer, day by day.
I like that: The Diamond Age. Gonna Google it since I don't know the reference and am guessing it's a book I'd really enjoy.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Nonono! You got it all wrong. You're talking about the *ground*... If that rule applied to walls, you'd be flying off in the other direction... *hgttg* *hgttg* "What are you doing?" "Oh, just laughing funny."
I wasn't talking about you per se (though I can see how it might have been read that way); posting a google link is mostly harmless. But the people claiming this is "established"? Or a reason to abondon real research? C'mon.
--MarkusQ
http://www.abraxisoncology.com/products.htm uses albumin "nanotechnology" to transport the drug to the tumor with fewer side effects.
And kill off the housekeeping mRNAs in normal cells?? Those are made for a reason...
Too bad, the developers sound like smart people. Now they'll have to die.
In the case of products with possible medical benefit, if said product infringes on the Profit$ of the Drug Indu$try then said product will be quietly "done away with".
Go back to sleep America, your Government is in control. -- Bill Hicks
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Ok, let me see: a genetic payload designed to disrupt normal cell operations, a coating designed to protect/hide the payload until it is injected into the cell. Isn't that a virus? Is this the first artificial virus? (Excepting the modified natural virii which have been used for decades for medical research).
#include "cunning_plan.h"
The Diamond Age seems closer, day by day.
Until someone reprograms them into a deadly weapon and "a tanker truck is blown to smithereens in the middle of a busy street, and a deadly viral infection is released with the explosion."
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
it amazes me that free-market and the benefit of the "business" is more important than things like medical research and education.. the progression of humanity and medical science should be the number one priority when it comes to what tax money should be spent on.. it never works that way.. seems like there's been hundreds of "possible cures" for cancer, but most of them run out of funding and you never even hear about it on the actual news.. the health of humanity has always been less important than business and money.. oh well..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Is there really a cancer cover-up?
Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -Albert Einstein