Scientists Find Master Gene To Switch On Immune Cells

Scientists claim to have identified a master gene which is able to transform blood stem cells into disease-fighting immune cells. The hope is that this discovery will allow for new treatments for cancer. "The researchers have 'knocked out' the gene in question, known as E4bp4, in a mouse model, creating the world's first animal model entirely lacking NK cells, but with all other blood cells and immune cells intact. This breakthrough model should help solve the mystery of the role that Natural Killer cells play in autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Some scientists think that these diseases are caused by malfunctioning NK cells that turn on the body and attack healthy cells, causing disease instead of fighting it. Clarifying NK cells' role could lead to new ways of treating these conditions."

Comments

Cure for cancer...

[ifwm]

I recall reading somewhere that there will never be a proper 'cure" for cancer because of the nature of our cell reproduction processes.

That said, why is it everything is a "cure for cancer"? The hyperbole has gotten way old.

Re:Cure for cancer...

[ByOhTek]

The problem with "a cure for cancer", is that cancer isn't one disease. Also there are many causes.

That being said, reliable treatments (cures) for different types of cancers can still be developed. However, no cure for cancer could ever prevent a relapse, unless it treated the genetic factors involved, and was taken regularly through a person's life. Even then, only cancers derived from the cause that the treatment targets, will be prevented.

Re:Cure for cancer...

[Bakkster]

Ah, but these cells are the ones that normally prevent cellular mutations from becoming tumors. It's the body's own defense mechanism, and it works the vast majority of the time. If you can increase the number of NK cells, you increase the body's defenses against all forms of cancer, including relapses. In fact, this treatment would be especially good at relapses, since part of their purpose is to destroy individual cancerous cells before they can grow into tumors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_killer_cell

While there are obviously some hurdles, mobilizing the body's anti-cancer response enough to overpower tumors sounds like a cure to me.

Re:My Cells can no longer breathe....

[mea37]

It seems like a bone marrow transplantation would be a more appropriate and permanent solution.

If it seems like that, I suggest you take a deeper look at the situation.

First, let's realize that the scneario of a patient becoming permanently medicine-dependent as a result of the type of treatment described in TFA is entirely speculation on the part of a /. poster. We don't know whether a treatment based on this protein would have side effects, and while this postulated side effect may sound intuitive to you, it sounds extremely far-fetched to me.

Then consider that, as your own link points out, the treatment you're suggesting has significant risks - so much so that it's only used in severe situations.

I'm also curious how you know, before any specific treatment has been developed and tested, that any case where such treatment would be applied is also a case that bone marrow transplantation could address, even if the risks and benefits were as you portray them.

Re:Used to cure cancer?

[Nidi62]

Warfare has been the vehicle through which many medical advances have been made. Developing weaponized diseases for study has led to better cures and prevention for the common forms of the disease. Techniques used to help soldiers wounded in battle have rapidly filtered down into civilian life. During the American Civil War, most soldiers died either of disease or infection from wounds. This helped give rise to better protection from diseases, as well as an increased awareness of the need for sterilization of surgical equipment. War may be bad, but it can also help in the advancement of civilization and society.

Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been suffering for my entire life (ok only 3 or 4 months at a stretch once every 10 years), with freaking autoimmune disease (white blood cells attacking my dermis, giving me Guttate Psoriasis). The Novo-Clobetasol knocks it out, but this time its all over my hands and feet (a pain to look at, it hurts, and gives me a nice little shot of Psoriatic Arthritis). Its not the end of the world, what I have is the least life-threatening autoimmune disease, and the arthritis is the second-least life-threatening autoimmune disease. My neighbor died of Multiple Sclerosis about 2 years ago, was in a wheel chair for 5 years before that, and in a lot of pain for 5 years before that. My grandmother suffered with diabetes for years. In retrospect, I'm lucky. With this news, more so.

A gene turn off

[Argos Avatar]

Turning on and off a gene does not turn on and off a single function. It deploys, or not, the set of interdependent processes whose outcome is an organism with said function.

A knockout is by definition the turning off of a gene. In fact a better metaphor is the 'removal of a switch', that in all likelihood will operate in a bunch of processes, hierarchically dependent on each other, with complex and unforeseen consequences.

The fact that the scientists can find 'statistical significance' in the correlation between the presence of a function and a gene says nothing about the process by which that function is begotten. That would be the more interesting question, as usual side stepped. An appropriate tag would be 'correlationnotcausation'.

They did not find how to make an immune cell. They found how to break the ones we have. There are probably multiple genes that will break that cell. Viruses found them, so will we. But we, being a tad smarter than viruses, had a bit of responsibility to understand our problem a little further.

The headlines of the next article in slashdot is 'how to make science popular again'. Starting out by reframing the findings, to bring back the ages when science was honest, transparent, earnest and genuinely interested in understanding.