Slashdot Mirror
Cancer Resistant Mouse Provides Possible Cure
Evoluder writes to tell us that scientists at Wake Forest University have found a "cancer resistant mouse" and bred it to make a small army of cancer resistant mice. When transplanting blood from one of these mice to a normal non-resistant mouse they are able to provide "lifetime cancer protection". From the article: "The cancer-resistant mice all stem from a single mouse discovered in 1999. "The cancer resistance trait so far has been passed to more than 2,000 descendants in 14 generations," said Cui, associate professor of pathology. It also has been bred into three additional mouse strains. About 40 percent of each generation inherits the protection from cancer."
Er, gives us a soul? I wasn't aware that the 'soul' was part of our DNA sequence, care to enlighten us heathen atheists as to what scientiffic observations led you in this direction? Also, if my soul is damaged, can I get a transplant donor soul?
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Thinking of a "cancer gene" is misleading. Imagine a net of rubber bands all knotted togethor. Changing one gene will "stretch a rubber band" differently possibly affect all the other aspects of the organism, often unpredictably.
This cancer gene could be the one that also gives humans a soul. We can't tell with a mouse, of course, because they only speak in pips and squeaks, but scientists should know all the risks involved with creating such a possible genetic enhancement.
You're a moron, Mr. Rifkin. Seriously, though, this is the type of comment that lies outside of answering, outside of science, and beyond reason. You can't win an argument with someone like this, and it's not even worth trying. It's a religious matter. For much of human history, such thoughts set the policies of governments. Then, we discovered reason and science. But the pendulum seems to swinging back the other way again.
I have always held the same skepticism with regard to studies like these as reported by the media for this very reason. What I always wonder about is how many things we miss because mice (or rabbits, or monkeys, etc.) don't respond to them but humans would. I don't know if there is any good answer to this, because we don't want to start testing random crap all willy-nilly on humans, but sometimes I just wonder if we've already passed up that miracle cure.
Perhaps someday we'll have powerful enough computers that we can simulate everything, including synthesis of a new drug for your specific form of cancer that your body will respond to. Of course, 'perhaps someday' will probably be long after I die of whatever cancer I'm going to get.
The end of evolution is only a Bad Thing if you consider the capacity to adapt to your environment to be some kind of moral win.
Humans, like a very small few other species, have the capacity to adapt our environment to suit us, rather than the other way around. No need to go through all that painful natural selection when we can build central heating, agriculture, and wheelchair ramps.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
A better question would be "Are there cancer resistant humans and we don't know about it?"
I know that that there are no cancers on my mother's side of the family despite heavy smoking , coal mining and high-risk lifestyles. Perhaps there is cancer resistant strains of humans and we just don't know about it.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
...but sometimes I just wonder if we've already passed up that miracle cure.
It's possible that a cure is out there in some plant in the Amazon, or as some bacteria found at the bottom of oceans. But there is no "one" cure for cancer. Cancer works in various ways which means there are various ways to kill it. Pharmacology has come a long way in the past 30 years. These days, it's very targetted. You pick a way you want to attack the cancer, and then you create a drug that does it.
For example, there's a protein called Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF). Cancer causes the release of VEGF around the tumor that in turn, mediates the growth of new blood vessels around the tumor allowing it to get nourishment and grow. So there are several manners that you can try to prevent this. One manner is to try to prevent the creation and release of VEGF in the first place. Another is that you can "competitively inhibit" VEGF by creating a protein that "looks" like VEGF and binds where VEGF normally binds and causes blood vessel growth, except that your particular strain of protein doesn't actually trigger the growth. But by binding where VEGF normally does, you're inhibiting the VEGF from being able to bind and eventually it will be disposed of.
There are other proteins involved in cancer and other drugs are involved with these proteins. So there are a variety of ways of attacking cancers. The most amazing work along these lines has taken place in the last decade and it's getting better all the time. I suspect it won't be long (a few decades maybe) before cancer is a thing of the past.