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Cancer Drug Found; Scientist Annoyed

Posted by kdawson on from the serendipity dept.

sporkme writes "A scientist was frustrated when the compound she was working with (called PPAR-gamma) destroyed her sample of cancer cells. Further research revealed that the substance was surprisingly well suited as a cancer treatment. Lab test results on mice resulted in the destruction of colon tumors without making the mice sick." Quoting: "'I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died,' Schaefer said. A colleague overheard her complaining. 'The co-author on my paper said, "Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?" I said "Oh," and took a closer look.' ... [They found that the compound killed] 'pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen.'" Update: 02/15 17:27 GMT by KD : As reader CorporalKlinger pointed out, PPAR-gamma is a cellular receptor, not a compound; and this news is not particularly new.

6 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. A science teacher once told me by Trails · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Most important discoveries are not accompanied with a 'Eureka!', rather with a 'Hmmm, that's odd....'"

  2. Scientist Vs Researcher by TobascoKid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seeing as the move to get people to call crackers crackers and not hackers never worked, I really doubt trying to get people call researchers researchers is every going to take off, especially as all researchers are, by definition, scientists anyway.

    Anyway, why will changing the name stop ill-qualified challenges? One researcher in one branch of science could still challenge another researcher in another branch.

    --
    At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
    1. Re:Scientist Vs Researcher by Maximum+Prophet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This had bothered me since 8th grade English class when I was told that we were going to do research, and I envisioned white lab coats and studying things that had never been done/seen before. What a letdown it was when the teacher told us we were going to spend our time in the library studying what other people had done. Let's put the "re" back into research. What you are doing is true research, what scientists do is original search. (ok, they have to do a lot of research first to see what's already been done before they start to do the original stuff)

      --
      All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
  3. Re:Tag Article Thusly: by Phisbut · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I saw this quote somewhere :

    The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny ..."

    It applies quite well here.

    --
    After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
    - The Tao of Programming
  4. Re:PPAR-Gamma is a cellular receptor, not a compou by pclminion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So you're saying I shouldn't find out about things on Slashdot because I could just look in one of a billion scientific journals? Oddly enough, I think most Slashdot readers aren't hardcore scientists and don't spend their time reading scientific journals (seeing as WE CAN'T without paying subscriptions). So if we don't read it here, where SHOULD we read about it? I haven't seen this in the mainstream news.

    Quit being an elitist asshole.

  5. The headline is accurate, too by iamacat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The scientist is still annoyed, because the compound is already patented, and thus will not be profitable as a cancer drug. Therefore, they will work on making another, possibly more toxic or less effective, formula rather than pushing for a human trial.