Slashdot Mirror
Key Step In Programmed Cell Death Discovered
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered a dance of proteins that protects certain cells from undergoing apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Understanding the fine points of apoptosis is important to researchers seeking ways to control this process. In a series of experiments, St. Jude researchers found that if any one of three molecules is missing, certain cells lose the ability to protect themselves from apoptosis. A report on this work appears in the advance online publication of Nature.
For normal cells to become cancer cells, they must become immortal. Immortalization generally involves alteration of normal cellular functions, such as the apoptosis machinery. So it's unlikely that the apoptosis pathway could be activated.
Where is the mod for -1 overfilled crackpipe? That was the biggest load of jibber jabber since time cube.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
The problem with cancercells is not killing them, we have loads of options on doing that. The problem is identifying them and killing them seperately and not affect surrounding tissue.
No breakthrough here.
Understanding the mechanisms of apoptosis is fundamental to understanding cancer. Cancer cells are typically "immortal". They do not undergo programmed cell death. This research, which demonstrates the role of these three proteins in protecting against apoptosis won't apply directly to cancer treatment, but will shed light on the gene networks responsible for regulating apoptosis, which will increase the odds of us learning how to turn it back on for cancer cells.
This is part of the ordinary business of good science, and definitely worth reporting on as a step in the direction of understanding one of the most fundamental biochemical mechanisms there is.
If you're looking for "breakthroughs" you shouldn't be looking at science. Breakthroughs exist almost (almost!) exclusively in the province of myth. They are far too rare to be worth looking for, particularly as they are only ever recognized as such a generation after the fact.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
No, the flawed reasoning is in the original post. Don't know why I'm wasting time on this but anyway:
"My Proof for Immortality."
If you call that opinion piece a "proof", it's already evident you're not talking the same language as everyone else. I don't know what a "conceptual proof" is. If you mean "proof of concept", that implies you have evidence that the concept holds water.
You compare biology with "data":
"The human body is a data set. This data set is transferred repeatedly throughout life and it is the data representing the body that is persistent."
Explain how data representing the body is persistent? What data, do you mean DNA coding? Actual cells die and get replaced, so it can't be that. DNA is NOT persistent, as it can be damaged. So what data, exactly, is persistent? The entire "proof" revolves around attaching the biology to a concept of "data" ("The human body is a data set.") and if the poster can't be bothered establishing that introductory premise in logic, then you can't blame on us for not bothering to take him/her seriously.
".. because both the female and male genes combine producing a hybrid data set that contains the best features of both that were developed during their life spans genetic modifications."
This is exactly why we dismiss such prattle. Like any good politician or magician, words are used to make things sound feasible where, on anything closer than casual examination, they are revealed as bollocks. eg. Since genetic "defects" (congenital disease etc) are also passed along into this "hybrid data set" as it is so eloquently and technically described, it's hardly a result that anyone would call "the best features of both".
Basically, if even thinking about that post is a way to "evolve" one's mind, you'd best pin it up at the local zoo to get anything out of it.