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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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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