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Tumor Suppression Gene Discovered
An anonymous reader writes ScieceDaily is reporting that researchers at Ohio State University may have identified a new and unusual tumor suppression gene that could effect cancers of the lung, head, and neck. From the article: "The gene, known as TCF21, is silenced in tumor cells through a chemical change known as DNA methylation, a process that is potentially reversible. The findings might therefore lead to new strategies for the treatment and early detection of lung cancer, a disease that killed an estimated 163,510 Americans in 2005. The study could also lead to a better understanding of the molecular changes that occur in tumor cells during lung-cancer progression."
it'd be even better if it could affect them too.
Gee, why would anyone want to effect cancer? I would think there are enough carcinogens out there to effect cancer already.
Oh well, what the hell...
No reason to stop smoking now. Everyone light up!
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
I smoke quite a bit on a daily basis. Yes, I am well aware of my vice. This comes as pretty stellar news for me. Should, at some point in the future, this develop into a worthwhile treatment for cancers, I welcome it.
Here's to our new gene discovering overlords; may you use your powers for good and not to create a new race of super intelligent and immortal beings.
To my knowledge DNA methylation cannot be reversed and DNA methylase has not been found to exist yet. The only way DNA de-methylation at a particular CpG site in DNA can occur is by DNA replication(cell division), where replication of DNA gives an unmethylated CpG site.
What am I missing? :)
Have it been patented yet?
Basically, the best way to create new jobs is to create problems that can be solved by new jobs. Bill Clinton proposed creating new jobs to fix the environment, someone else created the 'Lets Hate America' which is being solved by jobs at Halliburton and the U.S. Army, and paid for by the taxpayers. Similarly, you f**c up human genes through radioactive experiments, and then you create a new industry to solve that problem. I'm only half kidding
I for one welcome our new 6-packs-a-day cancerless overlords!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
..are areas that I have worked in, at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. I am not really that enthusiastic about this find. There are an enourmous amount of "cancer supressing genes" but very few yield useful clinical results. This seems to be a case of over-hyping (which occurs all the time) of a scientific find.
These people are looking for the wrong solution. I'm not looking to get a cure for cancer; my desire is revenge. Invent something that will give cancer to a cancer. Sweet poetic justice.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Ahah - so the Cylons were actually a bunch of medical orderly robots gone wild who decided that the only way to eradicate all disease is to eradicate the human carriers...
Oh well, what the hell...
Has the gene been patented yet? or is that part of the genome still pending?
So, good that we have another member of the network pinned down, but this does not mean we are going to get a cure for lung cancer within 4-5 years because of this discovery.
"Speed over accuracy," or however Taco put it in his recent Q&A article.
Bunch of half-literate nullwits. They want people to pay subscription fees for this?
Yes, but doing so only hasten up the process of getting ED. You don't want that to happen, do you?
I agree that almost nobody deserves cancer. I except the tobacco company executives, who deserve every kind of cancer smoking can produce.
For public smokers, I hope only that they are forced to sit in small, poorly ventilated rooms filled with smoke of a type they find unbearable for hours on end, every single day of their lives, until they die or quit smoking in public.
But that's just me.
>i>A perfect example of a careless grammatical mistake that completely reverses the meaning of a sentence.
A comment pointing out an error in the article summary which changes its meaning so drastically is NOT offtopic.
Another example of researchers drumming up their findings. Altered methylation patterns of tumor suppressor gene promotor sequences is nothing new. Neither is the finding of a gene whose product can act to suppress tumor growth. There are many of those.Posting this on slashdot is somewhat overdone. DNA methylation is an exciting target for chemotherapy, that will doutblessly benefit cancer patients in the near future. But it is too early to cry victory.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
The verb "effect" means to create. So the summary says the gene creates cancer, which is the opposite of the intended meaning (I think).
It's not a tumor!
"a process that is potentially reversible."
Yes, the natural way.
With folate (folic acid) and selenium and other proper nutrion. (very important to women proir to and during pregnancy for proper cell division and development). Also important for adults. Studies are ongoing of course.
Selenium levels are low in the US so it would be smart to supplement the diet.
It seems science has been on the verge of a cancer cure for more then 30 years.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
I do IT support for that guy.
He's a good guy.
I think its crazy how you can work every day with a person and not really know the depth of what they do for a living.
>Unfortunately, the thing that will get livestock farmers in the US out of business will be SLAPP suits by PETA et al. >(but we'll still keep importing meat
Is exactly why PETA and company are a bunch of traitors. They aren't solving any problems that they claim to be solving, just wrecking the American economy. Hopefully Bush the GREAT will dispense with them in his third term (after we adjust the constitution).
This is my sig.
As much as you all laugh that emphysema will still kill smokers, you have to remember that not all smokers inhale the smoke into their lungs, therefore decreasing the possibility of getting emphysema. This treatment will also work for mouth cancer, which is the biggest threat to those who only smoke cigars. As one of them, I'm glad to see it.
When will anyone listen to what *it* has to say?
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Bad news, but its not very likely that drugs/bioid agents etc will be developed to reverse DNA methylation. That's a covalent bond to "sp3" carbon that's being formed and though the drug-induced de-methylation is concievable its not very likely.
Actually, that was about the last thing on my mind. What I was referring to was this past Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica, where they miraculously "discover" a cure for a major character's cancer. It seemed pretty timely to me, but apparently the mods have no sense of humor. Go figure.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
The good news: about 90% of lung cancer is completely preventable. We have a vaccine for lung cancer. We know how to drastically reduce lung cancer. We have a proven method: fighting the tobacco industry. And we can win.
This industry with "more money than God," this industry that makes its money by engineering its product as a drug delivery device and pushing it to 14 year olds with literally billions of dollars of slick promotion, we can beat this industry. The glamor that this indusry has bought for its product through its massive advertising and product placement and sports sponsorships, we can defeat that too.
The record shows that when we defeat this industry, we save far more lives than any cancer drug that's ever arrived or is likely to.
Example: over the last few decades, lung cancer rates in California have dropped 20%. (Source: California DHS). Imagine if you had a drug that completely cured, in fact prevented, 20% of all lung cancer -- and this drug was cheap, had no side effects, and as an added bonus also prevented a dozen other types of cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. Now that would be some great drug. Well, this is no drug, it's California's anti-tobacco campaign. Prevention works.
test
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
You're missing the point. Obesity can be fairly easily dealt with, as far as such things go. Cancer, heart disease, emphysema are very difficult and expensive to deal with and generally not very reversable.
Smoking has a profound imapact on the economy, our taxes, and our health insurance rates. My uncle was a jungle fighter, a marine in the pacific in WW-2. He was given cigarettes in his rations and became profoundly addicted. By the time he died, it was hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills--although most was paid by insurance (IE, taxes + you and I)--multiple attempts at repairing his arteries with stents, weeks in the hosital ICU, and years on the oxygen bottle for emphysema. He was 76, 5 years on the oxygen, 3 years of surgeries.
I've seen three people in my life go from being 300+ pounders to trim, fit people. With a change in diet to more fruits and vegetables, more exercise, less fat and sugar. Very reversible, and cheap.
Although I do hope the beer had something to do with it.
Yup. That's pretty much the definition of a tumor suppressor - a gene that, when functional, slows down formation of cancer. Usually they are discovered when they are found to be compromised in strains prone to getting cancer
This is great! Now if we can only get the Big Tobacco Companies to support this type of research with some of their settlement money...
Homer no function beer well without.
What they didn't mention was that this gene was found in Cylon-human hybrid fetus blood. While the short term results are promising, long term implications are not yet fully understood. Use at your own risk!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere