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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.
When I see it in practice with proven real world results.
Too often these promising studies generate all kinds of hype and then disappear shortly thereafter.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
yadda yadda https://xkcd.com/1217/
While the title is misleading click-bait, there is potential to this discovery. Here's a rundown:
We already knew that miRNA (which is a regulator/anti-virus peptide working on DNA) was silencing tumour-suppressing genes, this is very old stuff.
We already knew that re-introducing tumour suppressing proteins into cells that lack them would remove the carcinogenic behaviour.
We did not know that adhesive proteins (a part of the external cell stuff that is commonly called Extra-Cellular Matrix (ECM)) regulated miRNA in proximal cells. This is very interesting stuff, and leads to several intriguing possibilities. What if you flood a cancer site with adhesive proteins attached to a membrane connecting peptide? Will that upregulate tumour-suppressing proteins? What happens when you do this to healthy cells? If the response in heathy cells is low, this could be a universal "low-risk, unknown reward" medication for multiple cancer types, something cancer treatment has long lacked (all non-crazy-person treatments are dangerous to healthy tissue now).
So, while not the panacea the title suggests, it's certainly an intriguing discovery.
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.