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3-D Model of Breast Cancer in the Lab
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to BBC News, U.K. researchers have built a 3-D version of breast cancer in a test tube. Their model contains cells from normal and cancerous breast tissue. The researchers used a collagen gel to form 3-D structures to create structures similar to the ones found in a woman's breast. So far, they focused on a common pre-cancerous condition known as 'ductal carcinoma in situ' (DCIS). With this model, they hope to reduce experiments done on animals such as mice. In fact, these experiments are not always useful because similarities can be poor between mice and humans. Now it remains to be seen if this model will be endorsed by the scientific community."
Already done.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Finally! Science we can get excited about!
bomb the us up set someone
Cells behave differently depending on configuration, and interactions between different cell types are hard to make realistically in a petri dish.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
I was excited by the word "Breast" in the story title, but then I saw who submitted it and decided, aahhhh nevermind
Tests on other mammals weren't close enough. So they decided to test on a bunch of 3D meshes.
That should be close enough to humans.
Sarcasm aside, 3D simulations can help in areas where animal testing can't, but scientist have assumed too many things in the creation of those models. Nature usually surprises in a ways a model can't predict.
The tests done on humans during the World War II in the nazi camps were cruel and inhumane. But no one can reject how useful they were in advancing medicine and providing valuable facts about human anatomy and biology, information used widely even today.
I wonder, could we somehow put the interests of the many before the interests of the one? We're currently eating every day food additives many claim cause cancer. But there's no way to prove it, since causing cancer in test human subjects is illegal.
Just consider: since testing those substances is illegal, thousands upon thousands probably die from cancer eating basically poisonous food we distribute in our food chains.
Check out channel nine! It's a breast exam!
what does having a (basically) fake boob to play with change how you look at breast cancer
From TFA:
Cells in the body grow in three dimensions. Hence the title of this submission.In 2005 the US government spent about $700 million on a disease that affects one women out of eight. That same year the government spent only $390 million on a disease that affects one man out of six.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
It means we can analyze the interplay between the structure of the breast (on all levels, including the cellular one) and cancer without having to slice someone's breast off or perform complicated imaging modalities (such as galactography, in which a contrast agent is injected into the nipple prior to imaging).
My group was working on a computer simulation for the same reason, but this shows more potential.
Of particular interest would be the processes that take place for DCIS to become invasive. Recent research indicates that computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems in mammograms are having adverse effects on prognosis due to DCIS - it doesn't always become a major health hazard, but it has the potential to become invasive carcinoma. As such, if it is found, it will be removed... and CAD is very good at finding these.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/28/bouncing_brea st_simu.html
here as well.... despite being a science article- it's probably NSFW.
The submitter was too busy to write english correctly.. 'ones find in a woman breast'.. submitter must have reverted to his primate self upon encountering an article about breasts.
I lost my sense of humor about cancer a couple of years ago when my wife lost one of her breast due to cancer (and yes DCIS reared it's little head). My sense of humor came back, but I'd like to see more research like this directed at cancer. They should have dumped the animal testing years ago if it wasn't yielding usable data.
what does having a (basically) fake boob to play with change how you look at breast cancer when what you're targeting are microscopic cells.
In soviet russia, fake boobs play with you?
Seriously though, boob simulation + slashdot? Imagine, thousands of geeks playing with virtual boobs in the name of research. BoobIe@home.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
...of the opening sequence of Weird Science?
I'd honored, nay, ecstatic, to be a Professor of Breasts at any university. Bob Jones University, Larry Flynt University, any. Oh, and I'd welcome a Slashdot Foundation grant to further my work, which involves Linux and breasts. Not necessarily in that order.
"similarities can be poor between mice and humans."
That's why they should use rats.
From the article: In fact, these experiments are not always useful because similarities can be poor between mice and humans."
First, who was the idiot making comparisons between mice and men? Second, which mice DID have breasts with which those similarities weren't poor?
Jonathanjk.com
I didn't realize that exercise was so dangerous
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
this story is useless without pics.
You can't handle the truth.
the bigger the better.
China, in fact, is very fragile.
... Cancer in the Lab Eeewwww. I really need to read faster.Carbon based humanoid in training.
Error:
any coincidence this is being release on mother's day?
If Lara Croft ever finds a lump.
This research is far from novel. The technique of growing tumor-derived breast epithelial cells was championed by both John Brugge at Harvard and Mina Bissell at Berkeley. The authors of this BBC article should have done a little research before; this work has not only been published (it is several years old) but it is a truly accepted model for DCIS among cancer researchers.
Reference:
-Morphogenesis and oncogenesis of MCF-10A mammary epithelial acini grown in three-dimensional basement membrane cultures. Debnath J, Muthuswamy SK, Brugge JS. Methods, 2003
-Phenotypic reversion or death of cancer cells by altering signaling pathways in three-dimensional contexts. Wang F, Hansen RK, Radisky D, Yoneda T, Barcellos-Hoff MH, Petersen OW, Turley EA, Bissell MJ. J Natl Cancer Inst, 2002
I've just booked a ticket to Soviet Russia, can someone point me in the direction of the nearest time machine station?
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I question whether or not this would pass any medical ethics comittee in the Western world. That whole hypocratic oath of "doing no harm" might be awfully hard to maintain in the face of intentionally giving people life-threatening things for which the cure is still in the works.
Nobody could really make 'informed consent' on that one.
Such a system could only end up exploiting the poor and people living in countries with no such concept of protecting humans. I think the medical community tries very hard to not go about mangling people so that they can get some more research done.
Think of unexpected side effects in a completely different area -- "why, no, we don't agree that your new-found brain cancer could be related to the treatment we gave you for a planters wart, we're not covering you".
I would be really nervous about opening up those floodgates.
Admittedly, human trials is little more than what you're describing with the exception you take people who already have the affliction, and would rather gamble on a cure than die/live with the downsides of whatever they have. But, to deliberately give someone cancer or the like is just going to scary places (which I'll only obliquely allude to for fear or triggering Godwin's law, but that is (IMO) a valid fear in this case).
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This guy will have one ready in a couple of years.