Slashdot Mirror
Genetically Modified Salmonella Destroys Cancer By Provoking An Immune Response, Study Finds (sandiegouniontribune.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from San Diego Union-Tribune: A genetically modified bacterium destroys tumors by provoking an immune response, according to a study published Wednesday. Using mice and cultures of human cancer cells, a South Korean-led scientific team demonstrated that Salmonella typhimurium engineered to make a foreign protein caused immune cells called macrophages and neutralizes to mobilize against the cancer. The bacterium came from an attenuated strain that has little infectious potential. Such strains have been tested as vaccines. The protein, called FlaB, is made by a gene in the estuarine bacterium Vibrio vulnificus, a close relative of the cholera bacterium, Vibrio cholerae. Tumors shrank below detectable levels in 11 out of 20 mice injected with the modified Salmonella, said the study, published in Science Translational Medicine. The engineered Salmonella provoke a sustained immune response, in addition to preventing the spread of a human colon cancer implanted in a mouse. The bacterium also were found to be nontoxic, multiplying almost exclusively inside tumors.
Time to start smoking again!
Genetically modified microscopic fish eat cancer but do they stop there?
More at 11.
Having lost dear family members and friends to cancer variants, I follow such news items with interest.
Yes, this above study was with mice, not yet a trial on humans. But even so I have the impression that significant breakthroughs are now being made regularly, and then there is Microsoft throwing machine learning at the problem, all of which leads me to wonder - will we soonish be able to cure all cancer? That would be truly a breakthrough for for society.
Any insights from people in the field?
cancer gives us more time. the Daily Mail says so.
Does sound too good to be true. I'll wait for someone else to replicate the study before throwing my investment dollars at their soon-to-be-announced development company.
I thought I've heard this story before...
I only get infected by fair trade ORGANIC salmonella!
about the surprising advantages of eating at certain chain restaurants
It was bad enough in plants. Anyone who eats GMO salmonella gets what they deserve.
instead of all those natural ingredients like baking soda, lemon juice and vinegar, which are nasty substances because they are not patentable. Who is BigPharma going to make money off baking soda if everyone can make it?
I'm having trouble parsing the second sentence in the summary/quote. I guess the sentence means the following:
The team demonstrated that if you engineer Salmonella typhimurium to make a foreign protein, then this Salmonella typhimurium (or maybe the protein?) causes immune cells called macrophages to mobilize against the cancer.
Is that right? What about the "neutralizes"?
BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin, still a common base for TB vaccines today in many countries) has been a standard treatment for bladder cancer (specifically: non-muscle invasive bladder cancer) since the late 70s. As it was explained to me in medical school in the early 90s, before molecular biology was widely understood by physicians (at least not to my standards -- I was a molecular biologist before med school), it was a general stimulant of local immune response, but I always suspected it was something more specific.
The idea of a specific immunological cross-reactions has been well known in medicine for maybe 80 years. "Rheumatic fever" caused by Group A ß-hemolytic streptococci often triggers heart/valve damage because antibodies produced in response to a bacterial protein often cross-react with a structural heart protein. In this example (once called "rheumatic" heart disease or valve damage), the effects are negative. I always thought deliberately targeted cross-reactions were an obvious path for treatment investigation, and was frustrated that it never seemed to be very actively pursued.
In truth, it probably has been, many times. Some positive studies were likely published; others were equivocal or lack sufficient (statistical) power. Some failed.
As a space enthusiast, I always say "space is hard". Biology is harder. Even I forget that, mostly because a molecular biologist's first reaction is to try to think of easy ways to explore/prove their latest idea (trying hard to ignore the fact that their "quick elegant" experiment will likely take years to bear compelling evidence, due to complications) -- and a physician? Well, even we forget the truth/depth of the aphorism "it's an art as much as a science".
I'm hoping we'll be seeing a LOT more results along this line of inquiry in the coming decade, because I'm hoping we're finally ready to really explore it. We may not be, yet. Molecular simulations may not yet be at sufficient reliability, and the combinatorial math may yield too many permutations for empirical trials
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
TFA did not say, which is curious, because I would have thought that would be an important discovery. The body's occasional failure to distinguish cancer from non-cancer is pretty much the sole reason why cancer is even a problem.
The article did say that this variety of salmonella prefers a low oxygen environment but doesn't explain if that environment was unique to tumours or if it was sufficient to attract the bacteria.
you be the same person who writes the text words of the summary?
yeah, that guy a hundred years ago, 25 years before we knew what dna did, he really had it right. he didn't know what cancer actually was, since he didn't know what dna was, but he definitely had it right.
you talking should not much friend. you make laugh for people on this site of america - it not for you. you stick with your own community - they think you smart - here you just clown.
If you click two layers deep you can read the scientific article. The "immune response" to the bacteria isn't mentioned in the abstract of the paper, because it is not relevant to the tumors shrinking. It might even be bad news for the anti-cancer mechanism.
The "foreign protein" that was genetically added to the bacterium is FlaB, and FlaB (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-695X.2009.00643.x/full paragraph 2 after the abstract) triggers the TLR5-mediated cell death pathway.
They tested this bacterium in TLR5 (Toll-like receptor 5) negative tumors and found that the FlaB induced shrinkage of the tumors. The immune response to the bacterium was not the mechanism for the tumor shrinkage, the bacteria-produced FlaB proteing was.
If slashdot wants to be "News for Nerds" they should do better than re-using the words from a gloss of a scientific article. If you click the link provided, you find a mainstream news article that emphasizes the immune response, implies the immune response is the mechanism, calls FlaB a "foreign protein" (which is true, but one of the least relevant details about it) and doesn't mention that this was only tried in TLR5-negative tumors.
If I only had a penny for every time a cancer cure was posted on slashdot, I'd be rich. Eventually, one of them will be real.
Too bad. In either case it means that cancer patients will not see a benefit.
Now suddenly FlaB is a GOOD thing. Up to now, most people seemed to HATE flab!
SF movies typically tie into whatever tech is trendy at the time so seeing an echo in reality isn't that strange.
In the novel it was from biological warfare but Hollywood changed it to a virus that was supposed to cure cancer in the 4th movie version. The screenplay writers did it because they heard about serious attempts to have a virus that cures cancer and chose it as the target for their rant against the modern world. Maybe they think we should just sit still and wait for the rapture instead of trying to cure cancer.
The version called "The Omega Man" had the original biological warfare angle. I wish those damned dirty apes in Hollywood hadn't got their stinking paws on "I Am Legend" for the 4th movie version (third was direct to video but still a movie).
Am I the only one that read that as genetically modified salmon destroys cancer? That would have been so much more awesome.
Two non-genetic routes to genetically assigned features of biology.
Interfere with the proteins and even the signalling mechanisms while cells are specialising and you lose the coherency needed to cause biological organisms to grow properly. Those growing features were *supposed* to be genetically defined, but, as with frogs and temperatures, the growth of the animal depends highly on what protein gets made when, and if you fuck with that, then you get a different organism from expected.
Now, this is to people who already have cancer, and if this is going to kill them in three years, maybe it's worth taking the risk that some side effect will happen to someone with some genetic abormality or with someone with a high vegan or corn-fed-beef diet, or someone living in an area with granite (hence radon), or where malarial mozzies breed, or where the temperature is hotter or colder than the temperate middle, or...
GMOs are like trying to fix the space shuttle by hitting it with a spanner.
It might work, but you should try everything else first, and be out of other more feasible options first.
Still no cure for cancer yet...
Oh, wait a minute. This isn't fark.com.
I, for one, welcome our new genetically engineered microscopic overlords...
There, I fixed it.
Not to be trusted.
and Sal---maybe he ain't so bad after all ;)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Having just had a clear out of my fridge, I'm now kicking myself at the number of cures for any number of maladies I may have inadvertently binned.
Good news for McDonalds, which provides both the cancer and the salmonella.