A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
theatlantic.com
A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
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Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#2When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever.
So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made it we might find out that the threat develops too and cancerous cells may come up with completely new ideas. Red Queen hypothesis, in a way. I know the article says they have not seen any such thing in humans, but when we developed antibiotics the ones we see now weren't there either.
A little OT:
The new public release version of that new cancer like thing will be open source, as always, and also as always that is of little use because the code is a mess and deciphering it takes as much time as writing it new from scratch... on the other hand, whenever I looked at source code of major projects it reminded me a lot of what biological processes would come up with, just as messy, you can only patch the immediate problem, probably introducing 10 new ones in the process. Especially when they rely on automated testing to replace understanding - patches that pass the tests are accepted (keep fiddling until they do), until nobody understands the code any more a hundred developers and years later.
Sometimes software developers ask what new programming language to learn for self-improvement. Inevitably a lot of languages from Haskell to Python to whatever are mentioned. I think that's all aiming way too close to what those people already know. I would recommend - biology and neuroscience! It's easy and free these days, e.g. "Introduction to Biology" on edX, "Medical Neuroscience" on Coursera after the fundamentals from Harvard at https://www.mcb80x.org/ - plus probability and statistics (edX, Coursera - many very good courses).
Only some random musings triggered by reading that article.
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#3best subeditor ever!
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#4When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
If we look at cancer as simply another organism that's looking to survive, we can't blame them for innovating strategies. They're simply trying to carve their own niche in the world (albeit at our expense). C'est la vie.
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#5When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
Unlike bacteria, cancer must evolve "fresh" in each new host that it develops in. As a result, a cancer treatment that works today will work about as well in the future.
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#6When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
‘We are not done developing antibiotics, forever’
This is under the assumption that we won’t find something better/works differently than antibiotics. Some are theorizing that CRISPR-based approaches could potentially disrupt it and bacteria may not be able to adapt to that kind of approach.
Lots of this is speculation of course, but given that antibiotics aren’t that old of an invention, I find it unlikely that they won’t be discarded to the dustbin of history (at least with the definition and methodologies by which they operate now)
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#7Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#8When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
Unlike bacteria, cancer must evolve "fresh" in each new host that it develops in. As a result, a cancer treatment that works today will work about as well in the future.
You might need to factor in juvenile cancers or Baldwinian evolution.
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#9When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
Unlike bacteria, cancer must evolve "fresh" in each new host that it develops in. As a result, a cancer treatment that works today will work about as well in the future.
> “We then realized they were a near perfect match to the cells of another species, the pullet shell.” The cells must have originated there before jumping into the golden carpets.
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> Oddly, the pullet shells themselves show no signs of the cancer. They may have given rise to it, but they no longer suffer from it. Why? “One could imagine that the species-of-origin is now resistant to the tumor,” says Goff, “but we don’t know that.”
I suppose it's possible that one species could have evolved to develop and spread cancers that are more transmissible to some competing species than to itself. In that sense there could be some long-term evolution going on.
Re: A Contagious Cancer That Jumped Between Species
#10When we developed antibiotics we thought we solved the problem. Now we are looking at more and more strains of bacteria resistant to all we got. We have to keep going, turns out we are not done developing antibiotics, forever. So, as I see it, this might show that once we "cured cancer" (I know, there is not "one cancer", and that there won't be that one drug, it's more a dynamic equilibrium), when we think we made i…
It is more likely we will discover something that was relatively rare to replace the threat of cancer. A bunch of these new diseases are a result of the fact we keep
on making more and more results into medical treatments. The old things that used to kill people are eliminated and there is no more low hanging fruit.