41–50 of 111 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much of our regulation around medicine is wasteful, vs regulation that came about in response to some sort of malfeasance.
Most of it is probably both.
What takes years to develop for the human trials to start? Is it about optimizing the delivery system, or finding the right targets to test on in bigger animals first? There are so many people closecto dying in cancer, that finding volunteers for a Phase 1 test should be easy.
I have a friend who about 15 years ago was told he was going to die from melanoma in about a year. Within that first year he was put on a trial that added another 2 or so years to his life. Then during that time another experimental treatment was created and tested on him and that gave him another couple of years. A decade and a half later here we are, he still has cancer but his family (wife and two kids) has got to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much of our regulation around medicine is wasteful, vs regulation that came about in response to some sort of malfeasance.
Most of it is probably both.
What takes years to develop for the human trials to start? Is it about optimizing the delivery system, or finding the right targets to test on in bigger animals first? There are so many people closecto dying in cancer, that finding volunteers for a Phase 1 test should be easy.
From the article: "yet it doesn’t seem to be important for normal development" Gene space is huge. My cancer is cured, but now I'm dying of mange. So that's why that mouse kept licking itself. Big ask for someone else. They have trouble getting blood thinners, statins and beta blockers right. And there's no genetics there. It's stuff people ate out in the woods for hundreds of thousands of years. > There are so many…
https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/clinical-trials/frequently...
> MTDH is important for most major human cancers, not important for normal cells, and it can be eliminated with no obvious side effects I'm not fully buying that. If you look at "Function" on Wikipedia, it seems to have some important roles, including angiogenesis (which is still important outside of cancer). It's not like evolution would select for something that is useless outside of helping cancer. I'd be curious…
> It's not like evolution would select for something that is useless outside of helping cancer. Cancers often have genetic basis so in a sense evolution has already selected for it in some people or at least not selected against it. IANAdoctor/biologist but i assume diseases that tend to strike after child bearing age have less negative selection pressure than other diseases.
It gets even better: there is selective pressure for adults that have borne children to die so that their children can procreate. First noted in pea plants that send a chemical signal to kill themselves up from the pod, can be extended to animals in things like cancer rates.
"Because while it’s important to show that mice born without MTDH are resistant to cancer, that doesn’t help patients, whose genes can’t be rewritten ." ...yet Wonder if we'll look back at this and think "how quaint".
Actually, we can: I think we already have working gene therapy for several diseases. Just look at the current list on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Treatment_of_gene...
> MTDH is important for most major human cancers, not important for normal cells, and it can be eliminated with no obvious side effects I'm not fully buying that. If you look at "Function" on Wikipedia, it seems to have some important roles, including angiogenesis (which is still important outside of cancer). It's not like evolution would select for something that is useless outside of helping cancer. I'd be curious…
Two things to keep in mind:
1. Biology has never selected genes to maximize longevity, only to maximize healthy breeding. There are very likely tons of genes that make sense as a growing child but are harmful at a later age, e.g. a post menopause/vasectomy adult does not need the genes to create gametes but those same genes may be causing cancerous issues for some.
2. Gene therapy (at least CRISPR-Cas9 like things) are in theory reversible[0]. Diagnose the cancer. Delete the notable gene or just make a point mutation to disable it. Treat/wait the cancer into remission. Re-add the notable gene or re-enable it with a point mutation. Hopefully such a strategy would minimize any long term effects and eliminate the cancer.
[0] There may be cases where a bio-engineer could design an effective yet irreversible edit. However, that seems like it would require serious effort and I doubt it would have enough value to be approved by the FDA for use.
> MTDH is important for most major human cancers, not important for normal cells, and it can be eliminated with no obvious side effects I'm not fully buying that. If you look at "Function" on Wikipedia, it seems to have some important roles, including angiogenesis (which is still important outside of cancer). It's not like evolution would select for something that is useless outside of helping cancer. I'd be curious…
"Because while it’s important to show that mice born without MTDH are resistant to cancer, that doesn’t help patients, whose genes can’t be rewritten ." ...yet Wonder if we'll look back at this and think "how quaint".
Actually, we can: I think we already have working gene therapy for several diseases. Just look at the current list on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Treatment_of_gene...
For example, increasing muscle mass is beneficial even if it hits only 25% of cells. It can also be injected directly into each large muscle group. Or specifically targeted.
Meanwhile, trying to target pancreatic cancer is really hard given it’s location, and depends on if the “bad proteins” would be transported by blood to the pancreas anyways and/or if even 0.01% of cells creating the protein is enough to sustain the problem.