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Scientists Unlock Reasons Cancer Spreads

Posted by samzenpus on from the malignant-ambassador dept.

* * Beatles-Beatles writes "Instead of a cell just breaking off from a tumor and traveling through the bloodstream to another organ where it forms a secondary tumour, or metastasis, researchers in the United States have shown that the cancer sends out envoys to prepare the new site."

4 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Ordinary Bone Marrow Cells vs Stem Cells by Quirk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The article mentioned ordinary bone marrow cells, but recent reports have cited... "Bone marrow stem cells, for example, are the most primitive cells in the marrow. From them all the various types of blood cells are descended. Bone marrow stem-cell transfusions (or transplants) were originally given to replace various types of blood cells."

    "Stem cells from bone marrow can also, quite remarkably, give rise to non-marrow cells"

    Do bone marrow cells exhibit pluripotent characteristics that lend them to the use metastasis puts them to?

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen
  2. The more we know, the more we know we don't know by UR30 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Let's quote the philospher-poet D.H. Rumsfeld on this:
    The Unknown
    As we know,
    There are known knowns.
    There are things we know we know.
    We also know
    There are known unknowns.
    That is to say
    We know there are some things
    We do not know.
    But there are also unknown unknowns,
    The ones we don't know
    We don't know.
  3. Re:Use up the landing pads? by Muhammar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think much better approach is to identify these marrow-stimulating factors that are produced by tumors. Once you are able to shut off this signaling (by making therapeutic antibodies against these factors, by developing an antagonist for their receptors, etc), you won't have to mess with fibronectin (which has useful function in cell adhesion elsewhere).

    --
    I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  4. Re:The language of cells by milimetric · · Score: 3, Interesting

    holy crap dude, if all you said is really true, you're pretty smart. Also, if that is the case, and from the tone of your post, I'm assuming that you're involved with immunology. So you have a problem selling this type of research to potential investors and business partners? Maybe I have an idea: I have no idea of the technical aspects of the following, IANAD-HNEFC (I am not a doctor - heh, not even freakin close).

    What if you sell it by saying that research into this field will not only prove beneficial to killing cancer but will also prove beneficial to killing HIV, because HIV is a disease that kills the immune system (lol, wow, only a business person would believe in that connection). Use the words "killing" and use AIDS instead of HIV. Repeat these words with a loud megaphone directly into the ears of the business and marketting people. Killing Cancer and AIDS sells. Studying immunology in order to find out why cancerous cells that are communicating with the immune system are being ignored does not sell.

    Anyway, best of luck to you, and I didn't meant to sound too trivial in the above, just trying to explain that marketing is not about what's right, it's about what's louder.

    Dan