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Biological 'Logic Circuit' Destroys Cancer Cells
intellitech writes "Researchers led by ETH professor Yaakov Benenson and MIT professor Ron Weiss have successfully incorporated diagnostic biological information processing in human cells. In a study recently published in Science (abstract), they describe a multi-gene synthetic 'logic circuit' whose task is to distinguish between cancer and healthy cells, and subsequently target cancer cells for destruction. This circuit works by sampling and integrating five intracellular, cancer-specific molecular factors and their concentration. The circuit makes a positive identification only when all factors are present in the cell, resulting in highly precise cancer detection. Researchers hope it can serve a basis for very specific anti-cancer treatments."
That is really cool.... it won't go terribly wrong, right?
Get a web developer
I think we have all lost either a family member/friend/coworker to cancer. It seems they are making a lot of progress. Not long ago was the method to use reprogrammed safe HIV. I really hope cancer can take the polio route soon.
Sure hope they figure this out in the next 20 years so I can grow to be as old as a tree.
In Soviet Russia, Benenson Yaakovs you!
I'm not counting, how many prospective cancer cures this month? I'm rooting for every one, but still.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Yea. Obviously cancer cells are doing something they shouldn't be doing in the adult human body that normal cells do not do.
Find what only cancer cells are doing (that the body can't seem to deal with) then use that identifier to obliterate only the cancerous cells in a way the body can safely handle.
Simple in concept, much harder in execution.
Actually, if one could perfectly identify healthy human cells and blow up corrupted human cells, you might not only take out cancer but AIDS as well. Whee!
And it will come to market in no less than 15 years from now, with 1/10th the effectiveness of the original study.
Sorry for being cynical, but it seems we get all sorts of researchers making breakthrough discoveries and then it takes a decade or longer for the stuff to get out to the general public to be used.
You really want to impress me, show me an "XOR" - either of two indications, but not both.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Just based on the abstract, it sounds a lot like they've just tweaked the Cell cycle checkpoint mechanism. Your cells already use MicroRNA and miRNA to prevent tumor growth in a sort of sensor-effector "logic circuit" based on multiple inputs and feedback.
The abstract isn't clear enough about how this artificial process is different or constitutes a "logic circuit" that's novel relative to the natural mechanism. Not that it doesn't work better, but calling it a "logic circuit" seems sorta self-promoty, like when computer researchers in the 40s called computers "electronic brains."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
A cell only reverts to a cancer cell as a methof of self-preservation. This only happens when something else inhibits it's ability to get oxygen. Somone confirm this, because cancer is a cellular MODE that switches off when the cellular matrix recovers. An acid substrate causes this, and localized contact with a HEAVY METAL is proved why cancer clumps into what is known as a tumor. Get rid of that havy metal, and raise the substrate PH, and the cells revert back to aerobic energy chain mode.
SCIENTISTS are doing it wrong. If you kill cancer in any way other than gene therapy then you remove viable tissue from the body that is needed: killing cancer leaves a pit on the skin. http://cancerisfungus.com/ will show you how a surgeon suggested Grocery store -available ingredients to force cells to absorb a PH increase to knock them back into normal aerobic mode: Sodium Bicarbonate (without aluminum) and maple syrup warmed in a saucepan for 5 minutes and drank with :8oz distilled water will do it.
..this reminds me of nanomachines from Cowboy Bebop: The Movie.
So, technically then, it would be possible to inject this into a common virus, and encode the logic circuit with a specific molecular pattern... ie DNA? So, if we have someone's DNA, we can custom build a viral bomb to travel through the entire population, and once it hits the person, it could cause life threatening alterations to their body chemistry?
That's probably beyond the scope of this research, but once you have a biological logic circuit, it's just a finite matter of time before it's put to military/political use.
I8-D
Ops... I got a bug in the cicrcuit! I forgot not operator...
sorry, we killed all your healthy cells...
"Bring in the logic probe!"
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Throughout human history, it has always been easier to kill someone with a new invention than to save someone. This may be the next generation of biological weapons.
Z.Xie, L.Wroblewska, and L. Prochazka, who all were listed as authors before the professors, seem to have done the bulk of the work. Kudos to you.
I have wondered to myself a few times if it would be possible to reprogram an intracellular parasite to become a new "immortality" organelle.
Take for instance, the work with toxoplasma gondii. This is already an intracellular parasite, which has been fully sequenced and even fully reprogrammed in the lab.
we suspect that much of 'old age' is the genetic breakdown of chromosomes from cellular mitosis, which causes a limit to the number of times a healthy cell culture can divide, and further impact the functional health of tissues made from such aged cellular populations.
Incorporating a failsafe backup of the chromosomes of the host, detecting cancer factors, and selectively disabling some the tumor suppression genes in the host that restrict tissue regeneration would radically increase the lifespan of the host.
The idea I had in mind was for the endoparasite to contain a normal bacterial genome capsid, for the organism's own cellular activites, and for the cancer detection and apoptosis trigger of the host--- but also to contain a fully synthetic non-replicating copy of the host's genome. (Perhaps it could be phosphorilated or in some other manner rendered bioologically inactive in the parasite.)
The idea is that as the telomeres of the host's genome break down, it triggers the biological equivalent of running fsck on the host genome, then rebuilds the host telomeres- essentially restarting the cell division clock, and rejuvenating the host tissue.
The problem I haven't come up with a suitable answer for, is how to cope if the organisms end up in the WRONG host.
We don't want aunt mae turning into uncle ben on the genetic level after they shag, for instance.
The organisms need a way to update the template, withou updating to a BROKEN template in the host.
I am not a genetic engineer, so I haven't thout too deeply on the matter, but I could deffinately see something like this turning somebody essentially immortal.
...it can serve a basis for very specific biological weapons.
There I fixed that for you
brb. hands just commiteted suicide.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
One is the fact that the "Man In Black" will be visiting you (unless you are immortal)
the other is that the "Man In Black" has penciled you in for a date in the near future for his visit.
but yes Live with as little fear as possible so that the record shows you had a WILD RIDE (and most likely skidded for a week afterwards).
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This is cancer treatment, but I agree: The ability to incorporate "logical" switches that react to markers in the DNA makes it suddenly possible to develop biological agents that are targeted towards specific subgroups of the human population.
...please tell me that Will Smith is not involved?
Thank goodness a virus, or bacteria, could never, aever, absolutely hijack this code, or part of it, and turn it around to become an instant-full-body-metastasising-cancer virus. Right? Nor, should I add, use it directly to destroy host cells more efficiently. Or just plain target and twist cancer-resistant-programmed cells awry? Or, (shhh!) "evolve", and use this logic to protect itself from all and sundry?