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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."
I doubt it. Chances are this will be used for warfare.
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.
Ah, to clarify - they also want to turn off faulty NK cells. That makes more sense.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Presumably, the mice are a research tool, not a result in and of themselves. If you're testing a procedure meant to create more NK cells, testing it on NK-less subjects lets you know exactly how successful (or not) it was, since your count isn't being thrown off by "natives".
The real Nature article is here : http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ni.1787.html
Nature Immunology Published online: 13 September 2009 | doi:10.1038/ni.1787
The basic leucine zipper transcription factor E4BP4 is essential for natural killer cell development
NB: E4BP4 is the mouse name for Human NFIL3 ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/4783 )
From the "discussion" section ...
E4BP4 has been shown to regulate circadian gene expression and to be induced by light in the chick pineal gland, where it regulates the pineal clock gene cPer2 (ref. 24). Several studies have shown that the degree of NK cell cytotoxicity is circadian in both rodents and human38, 39. It is plausible that as E4BP4 is critical for NK development, it may also serve a central role in regulating the circadian nature of NK cell function.
The mice only want us to think that they are a research tool.
That's how genetics works.
You find out what creates a something by turning it off.
For example, they E4bp4 gene is needed to make NK cells from blood stem cells. They now know that one of the steps in generating NK cells from the listed stem cells involves the protein E4bp4 gene. Using information about this and other relevant proteins (both that they have found, and that they haven't found, once they are found), they will be able to devise procedures for converting these stem cells (possibly from the original patient, eliminating or reducing rejection issues) to NK cells.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Apart from that you're exaggerating, YOU LIVE! I'm sure doctors world-wide will be very happy to give a cancer patient as many blood transfusions as he needs after this treatment, if it dramatically improves the chances he survives.
Seriously, if this has no benefits towards a cancer cure, I don't care...
Because it looks like a promising step towards helping auto-immune disorders.
Cancer either kills you, or you live...
auto-immune, you live, and suffer, and live, and suffer, and live (goddamn it).
I've known people with auto-immune disorders for over 25 years,
And it's only NOW that some of these disorders are even being recognized as a disease.
(coming in from the fringe to "real" medicine).
I have eczema.
Yeah, doesn't really sound bad does it.
Imagine having the skin on your fingers swell and split open, and your forearms be red and "popeye-ish" and they just radiate heat.
I've been lucky enough to figure out some of the triggers for it (MSG and onions, mainly), but it never quite goes away, except when I get a hard cold/flu, then it totally clears up.
Too many auto-immune disorders are still considered to be "all in the head".
Hopefully this helps bring them more mainstream attention.
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.
Why on earth is every article about biotech tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"?
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.
Q: What's purple and works from home? A: A non-Abelian group. (It doesn't commute.)