US Scientists Successfully 'Switch Off' Cancer Cells

iONiUM sends news that Mayo Clinic cancer researchers have developed a technique to reprogram cancer cells in a lab, essentially "turning off" their excessive cell growth. That code was unraveled by the discovery that adhesion proteins — the glue that keeps cells together — interact with the microprocessor, a key player in the production of molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs). The miRNAs orchestrate whole cellular programs by simultaneously regulating expression of a group of genes (abstract). The investigators found that when normal cells come in contact with each other, a specific subset of miRNAs suppresses genes that promote cell growth. However, when adhesion is disrupted in cancer cells, these miRNAs are misregulated and cells grow out of control. The investigators showed, in laboratory experiments, that restoring the normal miRNA levels in cancer cells can reverse that aberrant cell growth.

Comments

this comes as no surprise.

[nimbius]

As a researcher whos grant money is majority funded by federal dollars, I can assure you we face much more stringent requirements in the lab than the private sector. At the end of the day we're in charge of switching off lights, computers, machinery--basically everything. For about 10 years now our benefactors have decided thats not enough, and have insisted we start switching off things like the mitochondria lest it waste energy. Switching off things like centrifugal force, strong and weak forces, and even electromagnetism (where applicable) has saved many countless grant dollars. So when we're researching cancer, its only logical we'd switch that off at the end of the day as well.

In fact, ill let you in on a little secret. The heat death of the universe is billions of years away not because of some natural phenomenon, but because the research into the expansion of the universe is constrained by a mandate to make sure we put up all the timespace in the locked cabinet near doris' office at the end of the day.