Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Find Potential Cure for Cancer
MECC writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer. This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful. From the article: 'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ... The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell. Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'"
And still no cure for ca... oh.
Task Mangler
In other news: Many other researchers are currently working on projects that might some day lead to better cancer treatment methods.
"as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential"
Mmmmm, sugar donuts. Is there anything they can't do?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
and she's curing cancer like she's never cured before!
- Any monies derived from it can be fed back into further research
- Megacorp can't steal the idea and patent it for themselves
Universities have budgets to manage and need to behave in a business like way just like everyone else but they are not Big Business.init 11 - for when you need that edge.
There's nothing like a good gunfight to uplift the spirit--Calvin
Anyone else feels sour when reading the line :
.. an .. Idea ?
.. Like if the patent system wasn't abused enough. Sigh.
"The group is taking the step of patenting the idea"
Patenting
What the hell
While this approach may be a promising avenue to investigate, it's pretty early in the game to get very excited over it. According to the article, this approach has not been tested in vivo AT ALL at this point. Treating cancer cells in a cell culture is a VERY large step away from even testing them in animals, which is yet another step removed from humans.
Maybe someday you'll have a family member with cancer, and you'll look on the bright side and see this for the positive thing it is rather than using it as an excuse to regurgitate some anti-corporation blabber.
You do realize that if they didn't charge for their services, they wouldn't make money to do further research? Sure if a cure for cancer was found today, for the next 5-10 years it would be an expensive treatment. The reason is because the 100's of millions, if not billions, of dollars it took to come up with the treatment need to be recooperated. People have been looking for a cure for years and every $100,000,000 failed attempt at finding a treatment is a write-off until a solution is found. When that starts to happen, prices always drop and treatment becomes more common.
The logic contained in that "as" apparently dictates that curing cancer is more important for making money than for everyone's health. Apparently without any explanation needed, or question expected. Also unquestioned is the vast amount of money spent by the public (you and your family, for generations) subsidizing all the research these "inventors" used to produce their new idea.
There's a lot of discussion on Slashdot of justifications for piracy of media content. Fighting the arbitrary assignment of all value from medical inventions to the last people to use their predecessors to cross a commercial threshold seems not only more obviously moral, but more relevant to basic survival. And a stronger study in the arbitrary contrasts between the "robber" and the "robbed".
--
make install -not war
For what its worth... There is the practice of defensive patenting. I certainly can't say for sure that is what they are doing, but imagine what would happen if they didn't patent it and some pharm lab did. You really can't cry prior art to save it because it would still lead to an extensive and expensive court battle that would drag on for ages and keep the technology down. Since, like you said, that is ultimately what a pharm company is likely to do anyways since they don't want a cure it would be an automatic win for their cause anyways. If the pharm company can patent it, or tie it up in legal stuff for a decade, they win regardless.
I am MUCH more trusting of these university research guys than some corporate pharm lab research guys as far as doing the right thing with the patent. Hopefully it won't be misplaced, but lets not jump to conclusions.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
WHy do you think there have been no major cures in the past...what, 30-40 years?
It couldn't have anything to do with cancer being difficult to successfully treat, could it? Or that most of the really nasty cancers (lung, pancreatic, bowel) are detected pretty late in the game, huh?
Naw, must be greed.
it will make one person happy in each city
Yeah, those fucking corporations and their cancer profiteering. The way they sell all those cancer drugs makes me sick. Of course, most of those drugs are intended to eliminate the cancer outright so the patient won't need to take some kind of drug for the rest of their life, but still! How dare they!
Grow up. The company that comes up with a truly effective, broadly acting cure for cancer is going to make more money than God, even if they provide it at a low cost. And because every company hopes to be first, everybody has an incentive to throw a hat in the ring. And of course, once you make that huge investment, even if you can't be first, you still go to market, meaning that there's at least some competition to bring prices down.
Pharmaeceutical companies do plenty of seriously messed up stuff in order to make money, but disease profiteering isn't one of them. If there was the slightest shred of proof to show that they're purposefully avoiding developing a cure so they can instead sell palliatives, don't you think patients advocate groups would be screaming for blood from the rooftops?
But it wasn't what I wrote (the first sentence and the link are the same). Their post is better I think, but different. The next time someone has a thing about something they think is silly in the text of a submission, just remember that the /. editors change it before posting - a lot.
Not a complaint - an observation.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
you quite obviously do not work in the healthcare industry. I know that this study was done by an academy, but still...trust me. The healthcare industry does not give a shit about health. It is money, plain and simple. If this were NOT the case, all healthcare companies and pharmeceutical companies would be registered non-profit.
I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. Trust me when I tell you that they are about money first, second, and third.
Living With a Nerd
...still no cure for greed.
Is there any evidence this will be effective against the cancer stem cells that are thought to continually produce cancer cells? Those are supposed to be much more difficult to destroy, and if you don't kill them, the cancer will just keep coming back.
Thousands of compounds look like promising anti-cancer agents in cancer cell culture models. They haven't done any testing in normal cell culture or in any animals. It would be awesome if this worked, but it won't do anyone any good if it induces apoptosis in normal cells.
"The Johns Hopkins researchers cautioned that their double-punch molecule, described in the December issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology, has not yet been tested on animals or humans."
Relevant information: not yet tested on whole living systems. They pissed off some cancer cells in a Petri dish. Big deal. You know what kills cancer cells in Petri dishes? A sledgehammer. Cyanide. Dynamite. Driving over the Petri dish with a Buick. None of these therapies are likely to be useful, however.
Wait, you cry. Laetrile released cyanide in vivo, and that was an (alleged) therapy.
Yeah, systemic poison-giving is already at hand. It is called chemotherapy, and it sucks. It can work, but it is never pretty.
Infusing the patient with sialic acid, which will enevitably infiltrate by this method into every cell, cancerous or not, is twiddling with every biological pathway with which sialic acid interacts. Butyric acid (the essence of sour butter)? Rub it on. Hasn't harmed anyone yet - whats the LD50 for old butter?
Maybe there is promise here, and maybe there is just breathless scientific prose in a self-serving PR release.
My guess is that once whole animals come into the picture, these researchers, as many many before, will find out that biochemistry farts in your Petri dish's general direction.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It's only a cure for cancer, not a new operating system!
I hate to be pessimistic, but I doubt that this will work in animals. It depends too much on predictable cellular behavior (primarily that whatever enzymes are going to split this thing apart will be present) but cancer cells are by nature unpredictable. If even one cell in a tumor is immune to even one of the steps that this drug depends on, the entire tumor is going to come back resistant because selective pressure has been exerted for that cell's trait.
but does someone know why muscle cell cancer is so rare ?
Most of our body is made of muscle or fat cells, yet sarcoma is quite rare.
Has someone studied a way to make the other kinds of cells so resistent to cancer ?
Everyone who is whining FUD about there being a money grubbing axis of evil, clearly doesn't work in the real world. Having been completely federal grant funded for 2 years at a university, I can tell you, the lights don't stay on by themselves, the phone bills don't get paid, failed trials still cost the same as succesful ones... Even "non-profit" organizations can't lose money continously (and grants are being slashed every day), especially when conducting trials which can take years to conduct and hundreds of millions to complete. I'm not saying big-pharma is the least bit altruistic (and yes, they would sell their grandmother in a heartbeat) but since we don't live in the era of star-trek-the-next-generation where poverty has apparently been eliminated, and work and funding is apparently universal, one must make money to stay in business.
There is not a conspiracy for chemotherapeutic drugs to hold-down cures (as those would be the "new" drugs for sale by big pharma if they became useful therapies), but a conspiracy by cancer cells to continue living despite our best efforts. I have heard the same FUD about big-pharma sitting on miracle antibiotics, but in truth those would be huge sellers, it's just that bacteria have gotten very good at living over the last several billion years.
If the claims are true, the vegetarians and those ethnic groups that have lots of fiber in their diet should have lower cancer rates. Some epidemiological (sp?) study should be able to figure out the patterns. Should study groups with highly off the norm dietary habits. Results would be intersting.
insert your favourite big agro conspiracy theory that has depressed the natural and less refined food consumption in America
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You are forgetting something.
The "health care industry" can be relied upon to act in self interest of each of it's parts, not the whole.
If Ford came up with a car that everybody wanted to buy (this is a thought experiment, so doesn't have to be anything short of pure fantasy) and it lasted four times as long so they could only sell a quarter of them. What do you think would happen? They call up Toyota and say "you know, we all make some money here we'll just shelve this".
No.
They go at it full blast and try to make as much money with what _they_ can do, to hell with every other segment of the industry.
So, the first research place to come up with a better cancer treatment and even if it is cheap overall, if they can patent it and make more money than they do now (keep in mind, they know other smart folks are working on the same problem, they gain NOTHING by keeping it secret) they'll do it.
You are stupidly assuming the paranoia about the big health care industry is correct. Big oil, big pharma, big lumber, whatever... they only act in concert because it's a mob rule where their self interest seems to make them do pretty much the same sorts of things. As soon as one can break out of that pattern and make more money, they'll do it. Or, perhaps some other company comes along with a "disruptive technology" and does it. Either way, the status quo is due to the issues involved, not due to collusion amongst the parts of the industry.
The healthcare industry does not give a shit about health. If this were NOT the case, all healthcare companies and pharmeceutical companies would be registered non-profit.
Just a clarification: just because an organization is registered as not-for-profit does not mean it is not in the business of making money. Not-for-profits need just as much income to operate as regular businesses. The primary difference is the after-expenses dollar doesn't go into pockets, it returns to the organization (or funder) to spend it during that fiscal year. However, salaries can still be high and spending can be furious, just like other businesses.
I'm not saying you are wrong about health companies being driven by money, but many people commonly mistake not-for-profits with Mother Theresa, and that is usually false.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
You're comparing a budget plan based on Jesus coming back within the next 2 years with one for curing diseases which Jesus would be able to cure (that is, based on Jesus not coming back within the next 2 years).
Your comparison is obviously invalid.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I heard Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he's never cried.
My mother died last year from cancer. The type of cancer she had is not very frequent so there's not much money to make. The chemo-therapie and other therapy forms were not specifically developed for this type and do not work very effective and so she died.
I also travel frequently to developing countries and people I have known there died from malaria, no vaccination or anything because the people mostly affected are poor. And so there is not much research.
No, sir, no "anti-corporation blabber". It's just a plain fact that corporations (and by that patents) will help you only if there is enough money to be made. That is no blabber but pure clean capitalistic economy.
It is nothing else. It doesn't matter how many people are affected (malaria and AIDS) or how severe the problem is (cancer vs obesity), it's just about profit. So do not start with family member or the children examples. Business means revenue over humans.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
It's easy to decide the solution to the world's ills is to give away other people's stuff, isn't it?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I was looking for a comment like this so I wouldn't have to write it myself. Just to add to the notes of caution + hope, the research on cell surface receptiors, signalling molecules, and the like, sounds very promising. A couple of months ago, there was a report on the BBC about a different "sugar" molecule that is involved in cell signalling during blood vessel growth. Since tumors can't grow without lots of new blood vessels to supply them, this approach can stop them in their tracks. The trick is getting it to work in live people instead of glass lab dishes.
It's also worth pointing out that these are not your father's sugar molecules. You don't find them in a donut. They don't taste sweet. They're huge molecules, generally complexed with proteins, or at least peptides, and they're as critical for the functioning of cells as traffic lights are to the flow of traffic. (If you want to take a look at just how complex, there's nothing better than John Liebler's (sp?) Life of a Cell made for Harvard. It's a flash 8 or above animation.) What this research is trying to find is a way to give cancer cells a turn signal, as it were, and shunt them down a side street to the town dump.
I'm not saying I have an answer. But since - as far as I am concerned - medicine is about the well-being of people and business is about profit, they are not a match made in heaven.
But we have that combination and now we have to see how we get along with that, "family member" and "the children" examples don't help much.
I could make up a one like: "Imagine you are poor and one of your family members has XY and medical care would be a human right and free." It doesn't help with concrete problems either.
cheers
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Hilarious.
Only on teh InArw3b could this be modded "insightful".
Let's see, there's a really complicated, deadly family of diseases.
Why haven't we cured them? 2 possibilities:
1) it's really hard, and we haven't figured it out yet
2) a secret cabal of giant corporations is colluding to make sure nobody releases it so they can make more money.
Obviously, 2 is the logical answer, right?
I'm sure the recipe for the cure is on a 3x5 card stored right next to the Ark of the Covenant in that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones. I believe Elvis is the warehouse guard, too.
-Styopa
Anyone who has seriously studied cancer, would hardly frame this kind of thing in terms of the prospect of "curing" cancer.
The idea in the article sounds interesting, but it is clearly being framed in a way to provoke an audience to become outraged at the idea of "patenting the cure for cancer."
Shirley there are researchers here on slashdot who have worked in cancer, who are rolling their eyes about now, in fact, I have an extended family member who is a PI on a long standing cancer research project and I can't wait to hear their take. I suspect this is old news among people in the cancer research community, but I'll have to wait for the school year to start before I can ask. I won't even forward an article with the title "Cancer Cure Patented", come on!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
So they have found an high tech method to attack cancer based on the same principle you'd get by eating enough vegetables...
Riiiight....So, Mary Poppins was right! A spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down! And in a most delightful way, too!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
It actually did make me take a second look. Although I wonder if they are doing it to prevent some other company the chance to patent a part of the process and profit for themselves - i.e. patent it before someone else.
For the guy asking about perspective, take a look at the sugars vs. hepatitis article from a couple days ago, where they were working around a patent for treatment to produce a low cost version, while the drug company charged $14,000/yr for treatment. A cure for cancer is worthless to most of the population if it costs a million bucks.