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Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

med.stanford.edu

121–130 of 188 posts

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#121
post #77
post #55

Writing this from a squeaky recliner set beside my wife’s bed in the oncology department of a local research hospital. Three weeks ago she had a radical hysterectomy and partial lymphadenectomy to treat stage IIIc ovarian cancer, and we’re back to try to aid her in her recovery to prepare for chemotherapy. Chemo should start next week, but we are hoping to also participate in a clinical trial for atezolizumab. This i…

Squeeze her hand for a stranger. Every person who has lost someone to cancer, and everyone who has survived it, and all of the people who watched that fight- all of us have her back and stand with her. She's fighting one of the hardest battles put to a person, and she has our respect and awe. I saw my friend at his weakest, and also when he was stronger than anyone I've ever known. It's been years but still, I'm cryi…

Thanks so much for this heartfelt comment. The personification of cancer as an enemy didn't really click with me until my family was directly threatened by it. Reading through the drugs in her chemo cocktail, I come across bevacizumab. A little bit of googling and:

  A cancer needs a good blood supply to provide itself 
  with food and oxygen and to remove waste products. When
  it has reached 1 to 2mm across, a tumour needs to grow
  its own blood vessels in order to continue to get
  bigger.

  Some cancer cells make a protein called vascular
  endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The VEGF protein
  attaches to receptors on cells that line the walls of
  blood vessels within the tumour. The cells are called
  endothelial cells. *This triggers the blood vessels to
  grow so the cancer can then grow.*
Wait...what?!?!

OK, what about this trial...atezzolblablblah.. What's it do?

  Programmed cell death protein 1 is a cell surface
  receptor that plays an important role in down-
  regulating the immune system and promoting self
  tolerance by suppressing T cell inflammatory activity. 
  PD-1 is an immune checkpoint and guards against
  autoimmunity through a dual mechanism of promoting
  programmed cell death in   T-cells in lymph nodes while
  simultaneously reducing cell death in regulatory T
  cells.

  ...

  PD-L1, the ligand for PD1, is highly expressed in
  several cancers *and hence the role of PD1 in cancer
  immune evasion is well established*.
Seriously?

This thing isn't just some dumb pathogen floating around that just DoSes your body. It's digging tunnels and cutting phone lines. It has strategy.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#122
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If applied to an individual person, how does this present any risks of ecological damage? Alternately, does this concentrate control of the food supply into the hands of people who might decide to starve some population out of greed/apathy/prejudice?

What are we talking about?

genetic engineering and the validity of people's objections to it.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#123

Obviously not as important as the main cause but I wonder if a similar thing could be used to treat warts. I had a wart once and successfully got rid of it by applying a trick I read on the internet which is putting a little square of duct tape on it. Surprisingly it really worked. The Wikipedia page used to list the method with dubious citations and said that one theory for why it worked was that the duct tape stimu…

Apparently they can now inject candida antigen into warts, which is supposed to trigger the immune system to attack them.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#124
post #55

Writing this from a squeaky recliner set beside my wife’s bed in the oncology department of a local research hospital. Three weeks ago she had a radical hysterectomy and partial lymphadenectomy to treat stage IIIc ovarian cancer, and we’re back to try to aid her in her recovery to prepare for chemotherapy. Chemo should start next week, but we are hoping to also participate in a clinical trial for atezolizumab. This i…

I’m sitting in the operating waiting room as I type this while my wife is getting her uterus and right ovary removed, the tumor that consumed the left ovary having been found to be clear cell carcinoma. Her surgeon thinks it was caught at Stage Ia, thank god, but still—fuck cancer so so hard.

Very best of luck to you and your wife.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#125
post #121
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squeeze her hand for a stranger. Every person who has lost someone to cancer, and everyone who has survived it, and all of the people who watched that fight- all of us have her back and stand with her. She's fighting one of the hardest battles put to a person, and she has our respect and awe. I saw my friend at his weakest, and also when he was stronger than anyone I've ever known. It's been years but still, I'm cryi…

Thanks so much for this heartfelt comment. The personification of cancer as an enemy didn't really click with me until my family was directly threatened by it. Reading through the drugs in her chemo cocktail, I come across bevacizumab. A little bit of googling and: A cancer needs a good blood supply to provide itself with food and oxygen and to remove waste products. When it has reached 1 to 2mm across, a tumour need…

This cancer is being evolutionarily selected for proliferation and resistance to regulation. It is being constantly engineered to destroy.

See also epithelial to mesenchymal (ETM) transition, in which cells lose their anchors and become an entirely different kind of cell so that it can better infiltrate other parts of the body.

It's pernicious and highly specialized because that's why it survives. And that's why everyone will die of cancer if something else doesn't kill you first.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but in the United States there may soon be easier access for any person with a terminal illness to get access to any experimental treatment if they so desire, even treatments that are in early stages with no human trials yet.

Yeah there's a lot of talk about "right to try" laws doing what you have described. Personally? It had better be an airtight law accounting for the edge cases that could allow certain populations to be taken advantage of. For example, if anyone with a terminal illness can try an experimental drug, could a pharmaceutical company charge for said treatment? Or use the data from trying this treatment on the patient to fu…

> Or use the data from trying this treatment on the patient to further their own research?

What would be the problem with it, provided that the treatment is given for free and the patient has no other options?

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#127
As someone very far removed from the medical field, immunotherapy has always seemed to me to be the most logical programme of cancer treatment.

The animal immune system has evolved over hundreds of millions of years to target and destroy pathogens. Why use an indiscriminate chemical treatment to destroy cancer when our body already has a self defense system that operates with pinpoint accuracy, unparalleled target recognition capabilities, and ubiquity throughout the body. All these things make it a terrific candidate to destroy cancer.

Using it just makes so much sense.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#128
post #49

I'm happy when solutions for cancer are found. A little less when the way is genetic engineering. From my ignorance I imagine the genetics like a big complex self programming software and the genetic engineering a way to change little variables in a wide enviroment. In other words: Butterlfy effect, you're welcome.

> In other words: Butterlfy effect

The point of the butterfly effect is that everything you do could be responsible for some massive change in the future. (though the odds are extremely low)

"using this treatment" and "not using this treatment" are about equally likely to cause a butterfly effect.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#129
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't already read it, "The Emperor of All Maladies" (B004MPR80E) is a really great book about the history of Cancer and Cancer-like diseases. The author concludes the autoimmune system is key to beating cancer. Be strong, be lucky and hang in there.

I'm curious if there will can ways to use the autoimmune system to fight cancer in people with autoimmune diseases. Knowing someone with RA that has had cancer in the past it really complicates things because stimulating the immune system flares up RA. Often RA treatments involve suppressing the immune system.

What a horrific double whammy — an autoimmune disease AND cancer.

Re: Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

#130
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there's a lot of talk about "right to try" laws doing what you have described. Personally? It had better be an airtight law accounting for the edge cases that could allow certain populations to be taken advantage of. For example, if anyone with a terminal illness can try an experimental drug, could a pharmaceutical company charge for said treatment? Or use the data from trying this treatment on the patient to fu…

> Or use the data from trying this treatment on the patient to further their own research? What would be the problem with it, provided that the treatment is given for free and the patient has no other options?

My gut tells me that if the treatment is given for free (my original comment mentioned I was concerned if the company was charging for said treatments) then there's far less of a problem. However, there's still this incentive for a company to take advantage of this situation. Giving the treatment for free could technically be cheaper than providing the drug in a trial while also paying a participant.
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