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'Living Drug' That Fights Cancer By Harnessing The Immune System Clears Key Hurdle (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: A new kind of cancer treatment that uses genetically engineered cells from a patient's immune system to attack their cancer easily cleared a crucial hurdle Wednesday. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee unanimously recommended that the agency approve this "living drug" approach for children and young adults who are fighting a common form of leukemia. The agency doesn't have to follow the committee's recommendation but usually does. The treatment takes cells from a patient's body, modifies the genes, and then reinfuses those modified cells back into the person who has cancer. If the agency approves, it would mark the first time the FDA has approved anything considered to be a "gene therapy product." The treatment is part of one of the most important developments in cancer research in decades -- finding ways to harness the body's own immune system to fight cancer. And while it has generated much hope, there are some concerns about its safety over the long term -- and its cost.
But just wondering if this was the premise for 'I Am Legend' with Will Smith. Liked the book way better, incidentally.
surely they must be listened to as they know more, can't have the scientists being knowledgeable and doing good things based on facts and research :)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
there's got to be a zombie book/movie that used this plot
But the FDA would only let us use it on stage 4 cancer partients in the 70+ years old range.
This has the potential to be as life changing as anti-biotics were. Just hope we do a better job with gene therap than with anti-biotics. (Can't believe we let shmucks put it animal feed and soap. Just asking for resistant bacteria.)
Hopefully we don't end up doing stupid things like letting people add human genes to non-human life forms.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Antibacterial != Antibiotics.
There are no antibiotics in soap.
Human genes in non human life forms would be just dandy, for some applications. Ferment a batch of E. coli to produce more insulin or whatever hormones a given condition leaves someone without. No need to assume it'd all go Island of Dr Moreau
A friend of mine is alive today because he was part of one of the early trials.
He had been told by his doctor, just before he was accepted into the trial, that he should start putting his affairs in order.
If I recall correctly, he is 7 years cancer free now.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
What is the difference between Antibiotic and Antibacterial?
Antibiotics are used against both bacteria and fungi, but antibacterial compounds are used against bacteria only.
Antibiotics is a larger class of drugs of which antibacterial substances is a major subclass.
Source of quote
Antibacterials are a kind of antibiotics. There are antibiotics in soap.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Will change when they become one to deal with a disease. And if they modify cells than lead to eggs and sperm, the modification might/will pass into future generations.
This kind of therapy is all pharma can do to really cure diseases. All else treats symptoms, possibly very effectively.
Did you even read what you linked to?
“substance produced by a microorganism that is antagonistic to another microorganism’s growth in high dilution”.
A bar of soap is a pure lump of alkali fatty acid salts so that throws the high dilution thing right out the window. Soap is not an antibiotic. It is a surfactant that causes the cell wall of bacteria to rupture.
love is just extroverted narcissism
They're wrong. Antibiotics are, according to the generally accepted definition, medicine. By definition, medicine is something that, when consumed, cures some illness. If you cannot consume it to kill bacteria in vivo, then it is not an antibiotic.
For example, chlorine bleach is an antibacterial agent. It is not an antibiotic. (If you drink it, you will die, but the bacteria will not.)
In fact, in the modern use of the terms, their answer is exactly backwards. Antibiotics are generally considered to be a subset of antibacterial agents. When we talk about substances that kill other microorganisms, we call them antifungals or antiparasitics, not antibiotics. We commonly say things like "antibiotics will make a yeast infection worse", which would be blatantly untrue if you included antifungals under antibiotics. I don't think I have ever (in my lifetime) heard someone call an antifungal or antiparasitic agent an antibiotic. It just isn't done. They're entirely different classes of medication that should not be confused (because doing so could be a life-threatening mistake).
And people don't typically use the word antibacterial when we talk about antibiotics because that term is too overloaded by other things that aren't medicinal. See also: bleach.
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GE did a story on it that they posted to youtube years ago.
Probably my favorite part of this story hitting the news is that the spokesperson for this treatment is the girl from the above video. She's 12 now and still completely cancer free. I'm very glad to see she's doing well.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
... there are some concerns about its safety over the long term -- and its cost.
I figure the cost will be X in the developed world other than the US and 10X in the US because the FDA protects pharma profits (and it's own jobs) first.
Did they use crispr to alter the genes? The article does not say.
I'm living proof these sorts of immunotherapy treatments work: five years and still cancer-free. It's wonderful that the FDA may be on the brink of approving their use outside of trials.
I sought out and was admitted into a trial at NIH in 2012 to use a similar treatment for Stage IV melanoma.
In my trial, the researchers harvested my existing white blood cells and selected those that were able to recognize and attack the mutations present in my melanoma. Those cells were expanded to 130 billion in the lab and then re-infused into my body after my own immune system was killed off. In essence, my immune system was rebooted with white blood cells that could recognize and fight the cancer cells.
In theory, my body has been effectively immunized against the some of the cancerous mutations that my melanoma exhibited. I won't need any further treatment for my previous melanoma EVER.
I know fellow melanoma patients who were in related trials at NIH in which their harvested white cells were genetically engineered to express different proteins (like, IL-12 or IL-15 or NY/ESO) with similar success.
These novel cancer-fighting approaches are working. I'm happy that the FDA may actually be slowing adapting to the changing medical technology.
Liked the book way better, incidentally.
Then watch the director's cut.
Executives decided to completely re-do the ending for the theatrical cut after some focus group tests.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
So no dematological treatment would be considered medicine by that restriction. You are simply putting forth your views as fact and you are wrong. It happens.
The genes are patented by the drug company. The patients body making additional copies of the gene would be violating the patent and copyright of the drug maker. Who will sue you to death. If cancer does not get you, the pharma will get you.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
My views are correct according to the Oxford English Dictionary and many others, and are also consistent with the way that the words are commonly used, both by civilians and by doctors, at least in the United States (and, I suspect, elsewhere). Language changes, and old definitions become wrong. It happens.
FYI, dermatological treatment is still considered "in vivo". So no, ignoring the sloppiness of my use of the word "consumed", my definition is not wrong in any meaningful sense, nor is my example; if you put pure chlorine bleach on your skin, you'll get severe chemical burns. Chlorine bleach cannot be used in vivo in any form. Hence, it is not medicine, hence it is not an antibiotic, but it is still antibacterial.
In short, you're wrong, period. This isn't a grey area. You are objectively wrong about the commonly accepted meaning of these words.
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Pardon my cynicism, but I'm hoping the real key hurdle here, wasn't whether humans would allow something to proceed. But more importantly, medically, the specified interaction going on between all metabolic, immunologic and chemical processes, produced the expected or beneficial results to proceed further with study or implementation.
The idea that the allowance of discovery, and our implementation of it, is the hurdle to progress, is rather disturbing.
For this type of progress, it's one thing whether the strict adherence to the checklist is maintained, but that shouldn't be the outlier. That should be the norm. And the 'key hurdle' shouldn't be whether it passes scientific bureaucratic scrutiny, but rather produces sound scientific progressive result, beneficial to man.
I do read what I link to and you interrupted a conversation without knowing jack shit about what we are talking about.
Specifically we were not talking about pure soap, nor did anyone claim that pure soap is an antibiotic.
We made the claim that corporations were selling soap that had been adulterated with triclosan and similar substances. One side claimed they were antibiotics, using a definition found on the internet, the other side claimed that they were antibacterial, not antibiotics, using a medical definition.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I agree that calling antibacterial soap an "antibiotic" doesn't fit how that word is used - but trying to suggest that's because it isn't "medicine" doesn't make sense.
In your own linked dictionary, the relevant definition for medicine is: "A drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease." That definition would obviously include antibacterial soaps which are preparations used to prevent a disease. I can imagine being prescribed an antibacterial soap and calling it medicine (but, again, on the flipside, I agree that doctors would not call such a treatment an antibiotic - though I can't point to a specific reason they wouldn't).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
... but I suppose the modified genes are non-communicable.
The word "prevention" in that definition is somewhat problematic, in that it you could stretch that to cover all sorts of things that most people wouldn't think of as medicine, e.g. citrus fruits. (If you don't eat at least a bit of citrus, you'll likely get gout.)
In general, medicine treats disease. When medicine is used prophylactically (e.g. giving Cipro to someone who you think might have been exposed to airborne anthrax), its actual purpose is still treating disease, just treating it before it becomes symptomatic. Prescribing medicine to prevent disease (e.g. giving antibiotics to perfectly healthy animals so they won't get sick) is almost invariably a very bad idea. :-)
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Yeah, see I think fruit fails as "medicine" not because it's preventative, but rather because I wouldn't call it a "drug or preparation". If you, say, ground up tree bark and snorted it to prevent a cold, I would have no problem calling that a medicine. I mean, there's foggy areas if you want there to be (oh, this "baked potato" is medicine because it's a "baked preparation" that I use to prevent the disease of "starvation"), but I think that definition is actually pretty solid in terms of matching how people use the word.
And lots of perfectly reasonable medicine is preventative in just the way you seem to be against. I have no qualms with, say, getting vaccinated - even for a disease that I'm very unlikely to encounter. Different preventative medicines will have different pros and cons. And while vaccines might not spring to mind if I was asked to give examples of "medication", I do think it's reasonable to call them that.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Okay, how about orange juice, then. :-)
The point is that medicine is a bit like pornography. I don't know how to define it, but I'll know it when I see it. :-D
I guess you could call vaccines a medication—in my mind, that's kind of a different animal altogether—but either way, I wasn't attacking vaccines with that comment, but rather dubious uses of medicine, such as giving people antibiotics without reason to believe that they have a bacterial infection, giving people aspirin just in case they might otherwise have a heart attack, putting everybody with even slightly elevated blood pressure on statins, and other similarly egregious treatments that are typically about as likely to cause problems as to prevent them.
That said, in truth, that concern exists to some degree even for vaccines. Odds are good that if we vaccinated people against every possible virus, we would end up with way more allergies and autoimmune disorders, simply because the immune system would be looking for a lot more things and would attack them more rapidly. This is not to say that vaccines are bad—far from it. But the risks should still be carefully weighed when deciding whether the risk of death or serious consequences from an illness are high enough to warrant that incremental risk (in the aggregate), however slight it might be.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.