The protein doesn't kill 70% of common cancers, it kills 70% of the cells of the 8 tumor types it was tested in. A) This means that 30% of the tumor survives the treatment. This is a good start for a treatment but alone it is not a cure as the remaining 30% will continue to grow and spread. B) There are many more types of tumor which it hasn't been tested in so this is not exactly the mythic magic bullett.
In addition this has not been tested in a physiological situation. While it is a natural substance you can't just throw it at patients and see what happens. The dose of this protein required to reach the correct level in tumor cells may in fact push the level in normal cells to extremes. Killing 70% of a tumour is not good if it also causes 70% of your kidney to whither away and die.And delivary stratagies targeting specific cells have still not been well worked out.
This article is interesting not for any radicle scientific breakthrough (the work has been neither peer reviewed or verified) but for the comment it makes on Chinas current ethical regulations and human rights.
Many people on this forum seem to think that this research is "bad" because America may somehow be left behind in the great cloning race. However private researchers have never been inhibited in America and it is ridiculous to believe that american science with all of its resources will be radically threatened by what is still a developing nation. American science (and buisness) is more likely to be threatened by European science which is allowing both public and private interests to go ahead with human therapeutic cloning.
What is more worrying is that the slight advantage China may have is due to their lack of ethical regulation and disregard of human rights. While different cultures have different ethical standards the fact that these women were not fully consulted on the fate of their eggs and that human animal hybrids have been created is a real concern.
We cannot hold back other countries technical progress and we should not abandon our own ethical regulations in order to become more competitive. However we should encourage other countries to hold high standards for ethical research and human rights.
It is ridiculous to spend so much money and valuable land recreating Africa when Australia has so many of its own native species endangered. While having a wildlife park full of exotic african species will certainly be a tourist drawcard for western Australia I would have thought that a legacy to Australia should focus on Australia not turning it into another country.
The Australian government lists hundreds of threatened or extinct fauna and flora species most of which are found only in Australia. They may not be as exciting as elephants and griaffs but an appropriate legacy would be a conservation park filled with thriving Australian species, not exotic ones.
We are all familiar with the charity collecters standing at the side of the road ready to collect your change with a smile and for me the only time I give to charity is when I have cash. Many charities rely on cash collections to top up their revenue to workable levels. Will the cashless society have a significant effect on our giving habits, and will it become more difficult for smaller charities to survive in a chashless age?
The major flaw in this argument is that Jon compares the HGP to Dr Frankensteins quest to make life. Dr Frankenstein made a discovery in secret, acted on it, and promptly abandoned his creation causing the dreadful series of events that followed. Comparing Dr Frankenstein to the scientists who have worked long and hard on the HGP is an enourmous fallacy.
This has certainly not been a secret project nor has it been rushed through as Jon seems to think. The project was started many years ago and there was extensive ethical and community consultationaccross the globe when it was begun. There was plenty of "media Hype" at the time but this seems to have been forgotten by Jon. Throughout the project there have been many breakthroughs which kept the project in the press, not the least of which was the introduction of Celera to the project, and from the number of articles on Slashdot the media has been interested for the last year at least. For most people the finishing of the first draft has not been a surprise.
Also unlike Frankenstein's monster, this technology will not be abandoned. In fact genetic engineering of any sort is one of the most well regulated technologies in existance. The amount of public consultation and ethical approval required to genetically engineer anything is staggering, let alone clone something or involve humans or human genes in genetic engineering.
This technology provides wonderful opportunities and the potential for harm however it is not the runaway bus that Jon is implying it is. The technology is intensly regulated (more so in Europe and the pacific than the States to be sure) and there is plenty of time for public debate about the future applications of this technology to humans. This news should be welcomed as a platform for public education and debate not used as a forum for paranoid ranting.
It is sad but the reality of biotech research whether in the public or the private domain is that patents are needed. While patenting a gene sequence is still somewhat indefensible by public researchers, patenting genetically modified species is a necessity. A research group will put years of effort and hundreds of thousands of research dollars into researching and developing a genetically modified product. Without patent protection all of that work will go to waste if competitors get there first. (And the biotech world is fiercely competitive even within universities). Public institutions and charitable research groups simply cannot afford to take those risks.
It may seem hard to believe but even third world nations own some of these patents. Recent collaborations between western research institutes and african, south american and asian researchers have led to development of vitamin enriched rice and faster growing rice varieties which are patented and owend by the countries involved in their development. Research is expensive and the people who fork out the cash have to see some reward. In the private arena this may be profit, in the public arena it is the protection of the product and developers rights. Both are protected by patents.
This article is not about who owns the human genome, or patenting genetic information. It is simply a matter of a publicly funded group patenting what has become a very useful tool for the biotech industry. If they did not use public money for their research then they have every right to patent their invention, a way of reading a genetic code. If they did use public money then they have to provide that tool to other public US institutions for a reduced cost. Either way this is not a very big deal, it will have little impact on what the sequencer is used for nor will PE biosystems have any claim to sequences decoded using their machine (the same way that microsoft has no claim over what you write using word). The only change that may occur is that the sequencer may cost less for public US research bodies and more licences may be issued.
Slashdot Mirror
The protein doesn't kill 70% of common cancers, it kills 70% of the cells of the 8 tumor types it was tested in.
A) This means that 30% of the tumor survives the treatment. This is a good start for a treatment but alone it is not a cure as the remaining 30% will continue to grow and spread.
B) There are many more types of tumor which it hasn't been tested in so this is not exactly the mythic magic bullett.
In addition this has not been tested in a physiological situation. While it is a natural substance you can't just throw it at patients and see what happens. The dose of this protein required to reach the correct level in tumor cells may in fact push the level in normal cells to extremes. Killing 70% of a tumour is not good if it also causes 70% of your kidney to whither away and die.And delivary stratagies targeting specific cells have still not been well worked out.
This article is interesting not for any radicle scientific breakthrough (the work has been neither peer reviewed or verified) but for the comment it makes on Chinas current ethical regulations and human rights.
Many people on this forum seem to think that this research is "bad" because America may somehow be left behind in the great cloning race. However private researchers have never been inhibited in America and it is ridiculous to believe that american science with all of its resources will be radically threatened by what is still a developing nation. American science (and buisness) is more likely to be threatened by European science which is allowing both public and private interests to go ahead with human therapeutic cloning.
What is more worrying is that the slight advantage China may have is due to their lack of ethical regulation and disregard of human rights. While different cultures have different ethical standards the fact that these women were not fully consulted on the fate of their eggs and that human animal hybrids have been created is a real concern.
We cannot hold back other countries technical progress and we should not abandon our own ethical regulations in order to become more competitive. However we should encourage other countries to hold high standards for ethical research and human rights.
It is ridiculous to spend so much money and valuable land recreating Africa when Australia has so many of its own native species endangered. While having a wildlife park full of exotic african species will certainly be a tourist drawcard for western Australia I would have thought that a legacy to Australia should focus on Australia not turning it into another country.
The Australian government lists hundreds of threatened or extinct fauna and flora species most of which are found only in Australia. They may not be as exciting as elephants and griaffs but an appropriate legacy would be a conservation park filled with thriving Australian species, not exotic ones.
We are all familiar with the charity collecters standing at the side of the road ready to collect your change with a smile and for me the only time I give to charity is when I have cash. Many charities rely on cash collections to top up their revenue to workable levels. Will the cashless society have a significant effect on our giving habits, and will it become more difficult for smaller charities to survive in a chashless age?
The major flaw in this argument is that Jon compares the HGP to Dr Frankensteins quest to make life. Dr Frankenstein made a discovery in secret, acted on it, and promptly abandoned his creation causing the dreadful series of events that followed. Comparing Dr Frankenstein to the scientists who have worked long and hard on the HGP is an enourmous fallacy.
This has certainly not been a secret project nor has it been rushed through as Jon seems to think. The project was started many years ago and there was extensive ethical and community consultationaccross the globe when it was begun. There was plenty of "media Hype" at the time but this seems to have been forgotten by Jon.
Throughout the project there have been many breakthroughs which kept the project in the press, not the least of which was the introduction of Celera to the project, and from the number of articles on Slashdot the media has been interested for the last year at least. For most people the finishing of the first draft has not been a surprise.
Also unlike Frankenstein's monster, this technology will not be abandoned. In fact genetic engineering of any sort is one of the most well regulated technologies in existance. The amount of public consultation and ethical approval required to genetically engineer anything is staggering, let alone clone something or involve humans or human genes in genetic engineering.
This technology provides wonderful opportunities and the potential for harm however it is not the runaway bus that Jon is implying it is. The technology is intensly regulated (more so in Europe and the pacific than the States to be sure) and there is plenty of time for public debate about the future applications of this technology to humans. This news should be welcomed as a platform for public education and debate not used as a forum for paranoid ranting.
It is sad but the reality of biotech research whether in the public or the private domain is that patents are needed. While patenting a gene sequence is still somewhat indefensible by public researchers, patenting genetically modified species is a necessity. A research group will put years of effort and hundreds of thousands of research dollars into researching and developing a genetically modified product. Without patent protection all of that work will go to waste if competitors get there first. (And the biotech world is fiercely competitive even within universities). Public institutions and charitable research groups simply cannot afford to take those risks.
It may seem hard to believe but even third world nations own some of these patents. Recent collaborations between western research institutes and african, south american and asian researchers have led to development of vitamin enriched rice and faster growing rice varieties which are patented and owend by the countries involved in their development.
Research is expensive and the people who fork out the cash have to see some reward. In the private arena this may be profit, in the public arena it is the protection of the product and developers rights. Both are protected by patents.
This article is not about who owns the human genome, or patenting genetic information. It is simply a matter of a publicly funded group patenting what has become a very useful tool for the biotech industry. If they did not use public money for their research then they have every right to patent their invention, a way of reading a genetic code. If they did use public money then they have to provide that tool to other public US institutions for a reduced cost. Either way this is not a very big deal, it will have little impact on what the sequencer is used for nor will PE biosystems have any claim to sequences decoded using their machine (the same way that microsoft has no claim over what you write using word). The only change that may occur is that the sequencer may cost less for public US research bodies and more licences may be issued.