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DNA Cancer Codes Cracked By International Effort
Enigma23 writes "As reported on news.com.au, scientists from the International Cancer Genome Consortium of 12 institutes around the world will today release the first DNA profiles of some of the most prevalent types of tumors. While the story asserts that 'A new era of cancer treatment has dawned,' I'm a bit more skeptical, given that gene therapy and immunotherapy are still very much in their infancy at the current time."
Any word on a patch?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Be careful what you wish for. If you live in Paris, then yeah, having X-Ray vision is a great thing. However, if you live in Kentucky and happen to work for a purveyor of Fried Chicken, let's just say that ignorance is not only bliss, but a requirement.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I was diagnosed with stage 5 cancer at age 17. I'm still alive at age 33.
There's not a day that goes by when I don't look at my disfigured face and wonder what thing would have been like if I'd caught it sooner- according to one doc, I'd have been dead because my body wouldn't have fought it off. Who knows.
But anything that gets a genetic component and allows them to focus better on killing off the cells that have tormented me for over a dozen years I'll be more than grateful. There isn't a trip to the doctor that doesn't send shiver of fear down my spine, whether or not I'll be able to continue to provide for my family- whether or not that cough that started was due to pollen or something else... whether or not that pain in the side is a kidney stone or something more sinister.
Cancer is a killer. Even the survivors die a little every day.
http://www.qcmg.org/cancer.html It gives a background of what they are trying to do, seems interesting.
> I'm a bit more skeptical, given that gene therapy and immunotherapy are > still very much in their infancy at the current time
Those are not the only applications for this knowledge.
Err, to fill in that empty shell of a comment, specifically, this will hopefully generate at least a few new genes that are useful as drug targets. Anything that can make chemotherapy a bit more specific instead of just a general metabolic poison is a bonus.
I've been following this for awhile. Looks like I get to update my "hit list" of gene targets to investigate. And that's what this will ultimately be...a list of interesting genes to look at for further investigation. No cures right away, it will take time to absorb this data into the collective intelligence of the medical research community and years to turn it into new treatments.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
Indeed, the US is sequencing more genomes than any other participating country.
The US participates via a parallel project in The Cancer Genome Atlas administered by the National Institutes of Health, which while remaining independent of the international project, shares data and tailors it's foci to not overlap with those of the ICGC.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Everyone always forgets about the deep anal probe!
That's because the aliens make them forget.
Currently hooked on AMP
Well, that's not entirely true. There's also some weird stuff going on with methylation that still needs to be cracked. That's a part of the "code" if there were to be one. Also, you could say there's a histone code, with it's own methylation. I'm sure there's other mysteries in there as well.
But, as the parent says, sequencing is sequencing --- not code cracking.
Also, can I make a plea to the world that we stop saying scientists "map" a genome when they really sequenced it. Mapping is a completely different thing. They may have done some mapping when they sequenced it, but likely you really mean "sequenced" when you say "mapped". You can't throw these jargon terms around like they're synonyms, because they aren't.
And I'm not nit-picking here (nor is the parent poster). To put it in terms here that everybody can understand, it's like when my wife refers to the tower case of my PC as the "hard drive" of the computer.
Also on the issue of sequencing cancer "genomes" I think we'll find it to be a big a waste of money, as the HapMap project was, in a couple years. Maybe they'll find a few drug targets, but I predict the more cancer "genomes" that are sequenced, the more we'll find that anything is possible in cancers. What we really need to find is the driver genes that start the cellular changes leading to cancer, and lead to progression of the cancer. I'm not sure sequencing a genome that's a total mess because it's *already* a cancer cell is going to make it immediately apparent what those driver changes were. Not doubting it can be done, but it is a big effort, and I'm not sure it's the best way to do it. I think more likely you will end up with a lot of sequence data that's really difficult for most people to interpret, and contributes not that much to cancer biology. Good to know what the deal is with the cell lines they've been using all these years as models, but beyond that, who knows. (Heck, maybe I'm wrong and we'll find a bunch of previously unknown viral sequence integrated in the genomes.)
Now, I'm not trashing personalized medicine, where you sequence a patient's tumor line, and then use that to determine a treatment tuned to the cancer cell line they have. I think that's exactly how things need to go. But I am trashing this idea of creating a catalog of *all* cancer "genomes" (for the reason I mentioned above) as the goal of a "genome project". Try sequencing some new and useful genomes instead.
Overall, I don't like "gold-rush" biology, and there seems the be a lot of that going on. Be the first one in, and leave a big mess of data for the next guy to deal with.
it can still be used to set up tiered insurance charges so that people who don't have the genes will only pay a little more for insurance than they do now (doing business as it has always been done), while people who have the genes will be in a different risk group and will be required by law to pay much higher premiums than anyone has ever had to pay before
Buh? They didn't sequence the genes of cancer patients. They sequenced the genes of the tumours themselves.
You must favor the complete privatization of police forces, so the protection of lives and property and the arrests of criminals is bought on an open market and only available to those who can afford to buy it.
See what I did there ? Let's analyse your post:
Fallacy 1: Begs the question
Fallacy 2: Does not follow.
Fallacy 3: Strawman attack.
Stating that capitalism has no place at the sickbed does not imply or advocate that the correct method of paying doctors and research is governmental. This is the most common alternate system that has been tried (with huge success in general) but it's by no means the only one. There are quite a few completely different setups out there. Even your own country has thousands of free clinics run by charitable donation - e.g. there is no profit motive and it's not paid by government EITHER.
There are at least four other healthcare systems in the world where the cost of healthcare is shared by various entities - so not all paid by government and that's just what's in active use.
The amount of possible ways to do it that hasn't been tried and perhaps hasn't even been thought of yet is potentially infinite.
The parent pointed out problems with profit-motive in healthcare. You assumed without any evidence that he must therefore be advocating government paid healthcare. He may or may not advocate this, but the point is - you don't know if that is what he advocates because he did NOT suggest any particular alternate system - he merely said that he is not in favor of capitalist medicine. You then took what you perceive as the worst possible alternative, stated that he *must* be advocating it, and attacked that. Three fallacies in one short sentence- impressive.
Or is it just typical American dualist thinking ? Every issue only has two sides and two possible answers right ? That's why you can have a "democracy" where only two parties have any actual power, it works because your your entire 350 million strong population consists of people who have only one of the same two opinions on everything, and conveniently - your opinion one one issue means you must have the exact same opinion on all other issues as all the other people who share your opinion on this one...
Actually... that sounds rather silly when you think about it... it suggests a culture that has utterly and completely marginalized any individual thinking when all the other parties out there (the greens, the libertarians etc.) even in coalition can't get enough votes for a single seat in government. You've had an independent candidate in every single election for at least a hundred years, but I don't believe you've had an independent candidate *win* the presidential election in your entire history...
Well... the real world is not so simple. Most issues don't have just two extremes as answers, and people who actually think about things can adjust their opinion to the specific issue rather than attempting to fit one ideological extreme to all issues.
The best way for society to solve any given problem may be completely different from the best way to solve another.
Very few people would think that police protection should cost you money - because when you need it most, is often when you can least afford it (not to mention - a truly private police force would have zero motivation to pursue a murderer unless the family of the victim is wealthy). You happily accept that law enforcement is best done when provided entirely by the government (there is no logical requirement that the people who make the law should enforce it - we do it that way because historically we've learned it works best) but you cannot contemplate that perhaps the same failures of the market may apply to healthcare ? So maybe the government paying for all would, while not perfect, actually be better than a capitalist system ?
You didn't actually state your reasons for being against that - you merely declared that you are with no justification - when the arguments in favor of it are quite strong, and cleverly avoided having to even consider that there are a multitude of OTHER ways medicine could be funded which may be better than EITHER capitalism OR government paid.
In short... EPIC FAIL.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *