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Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

blogs.discovermagazine.com

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Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#71

Post by earthboundkid »

Izkata wrote: post #49
duskwuff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: Transmissible tumors are fucking weird . They're less like normal cancers, and more like parasites made of cancerous cells. Moreover, they're not even typical cancer cells -- they're cancer cells which have been dividing (and continuing to mutate) since the disease first came into existence, to the extent that their genetic material has become wildly divergent from that of the host species. Typical gene…

Is it just me, or does that description sound unnervingly close to nature having created a Grey Goo scenario?

Nature is the grey goo scenario. This used to be a very nice rock in space and then life got it all slimy.

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#72

Post by mkonecny »

> The work has already given him a new tool when he talks with his patients.

> “When I have a patient in front of me diagnosed with the syndrome, they will almost certainly get cancer,” he said. “But in that moment I’m able to tell them elephants don’t get cancer and we are working with the zoo and the circus to learn from elephants so one day you never have to get cancer.”

This seems a bit unethical to raise hope for a cure that statistically has a very low chance of passing clinical trials

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#73

Post by gus_massa »

ninkendo wrote: post #65
bnegreve wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, there's only a limited number of times you can perform cellular division without getting erroneous DNA copies (cancerous cells). Like humans, elephants start their life with one cell, which is then replicated over and over again until the end of their lives. But somehow, elephants manage to reach body sizes 100 times bigger than humans (meaning many more cellular divisions) without having canc…

Our gamete cells have been undergoing an unlimited number of cellular divisions since... well, since life started. What's so special about somatic cells that makes them cancerous after so many divisions?

In animals, the gamete cells are selected at an early time in the embryo, and the don't divide as much times as the other cells. (Most os the cells of the testicles / ovary are just normal cells that provide support for the germinal cells.) Reducing the number of divisions reduce the number of mutations between generations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_cell

Also when a cell becomes cancerous it usually has a broken version of many of the checks to avoid uncontrolled division and to ensure that the cell cooperates with the neighbor cells. This will probably cause problems in the formation of the embryo or fetus. Or kill the baby before reproduction age. So cancerous germ cells are self eliminated from the gene pool.

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#75

Post by nonbel »

This is a MUCH better explanation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25459141

Killing off the misbehaving cells is an obvious solution but this must also shorten the organisms lifespan via organ failure.

You only get so many divisions from the zygote before a cell line must be killed off, put into senescence, or it starts malfunctioning due to accumulated mutations (~60). A good solution produces as many differentiated functional cells as possible while minimizing divisions from the zygote.

Really, this article shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how our bodies work.

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#76

Post by D-Coder »

mikehotel wrote: post #25

An old video [1] in response to this old article may indicate another reason why elephants dont get cancer, and provide easier way to replicate those results than gene therapy or splicing. Hint: go vegan. [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-not-to-die-from-cancer/...

Do human vegans get less cancer? (Honest question.)

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#77

Post by seppel »

Izkata wrote: post #49
duskwuff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: Transmissible tumors are fucking weird . They're less like normal cancers, and more like parasites made of cancerous cells. Moreover, they're not even typical cancer cells -- they're cancer cells which have been dividing (and continuing to mutate) since the disease first came into existence, to the extent that their genetic material has become wildly divergent from that of the host species. Typical gene…

Is it just me, or does that description sound unnervingly close to nature having created a Grey Goo scenario?

Cells are basically grey goo. It is also not uncommon for cancer cells to become independent of the host. See HeLa cells for a human example. These are cancer cells taken from a woman who died in 1951, but which are still living and dividing today (in some way forming a new species): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#78

Post by wildmusings »

ninkendo wrote: post #65
bnegreve wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, there's only a limited number of times you can perform cellular division without getting erroneous DNA copies (cancerous cells). Like humans, elephants start their life with one cell, which is then replicated over and over again until the end of their lives. But somehow, elephants manage to reach body sizes 100 times bigger than humans (meaning many more cellular divisions) without having canc…

Our gamete cells have been undergoing an unlimited number of cellular divisions since... well, since life started. What's so special about somatic cells that makes them cancerous after so many divisions?

Someone else basically said it but to put it more plainly: broken gametes produce no-fertilization, no-implantation, miscarriages, and non-viable or infertile offspring. So only the good ones get through.

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#79

Post by eloff »

nonbel wrote: post #75

This is a MUCH better explanation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25459141 Killing off the misbehaving cells is an obvious solution but this must also shorten the organisms lifespan via organ failure. You only get so many divisions from the zygote before a cell line must be killed off, put into senescence, or it starts malfunctioning due to accumulated mutations (~60). A good solution produces as many differenti…

So just waving away the insane technology leaps required, if we had a digital copy of our DNA we could theoretically create pristine new stem cells and inject them into our bodies as needed to replace aging cells. You might make such a master copy at birth, or more likely in such a world, you're conceived from the master copy which your parents carefully edited before deciding to have you.

Fundamentally we could live a really long time in the far future, which is maybe closer to us today than we are to 0 A.D.

Re: Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Now We Know Why (2015)

#80

Post by nonbel »

eloff wrote: post #79
nonbel wrote: post #75

This is a MUCH better explanation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25459141 Killing off the misbehaving cells is an obvious solution but this must also shorten the organisms lifespan via organ failure. You only get so many divisions from the zygote before a cell line must be killed off, put into senescence, or it starts malfunctioning due to accumulated mutations (~60). A good solution produces as many differenti…

So just waving away the insane technology leaps required, if we had a digital copy of our DNA we could theoretically create pristine new stem cells and inject them into our bodies as needed to replace aging cells. You might make such a master copy at birth, or more likely in such a world, you're conceived from the master copy which your parents carefully edited before deciding to have you. Fundamentally we could live…

The "master copy" would be at conception. Even after a few divisions it is unlikely any of the cells carry the exact same DNA.

And just because you made it from zygote to birth does not mean your master copy was "pristine".

But yeah, if you could somehow replace your tissue stem cells in situ with ones that are closer to the original state it would generally allow your body to continue functioning for much longer. I mean some of those mutations could be beneficial to your particular environment too, but in general... Yeah.

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