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Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

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31–40 of 111 posts

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#34
post #30

This idea of "curing cancer" as if cancer was a monolithic disease really needs to die. Cancer is just a catch-all term for somatic cell mutations that become unmanageable. There are as many ways to get "cancer" as there are ways to mutate cells into these sort of uncontrollable states. And there are cures for multiple cancers today (Imantinib, Herceptin, etc). There actually have been enormous recent strides in drug…

Yeah, I always make sure to say cancer(s) so we can skip the “it’s not one disease “ digression. It adds nothing to the conversation. According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to eliminate cancer(s): https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s

"It's not one disease" certainly preempts a lot of uninformed takes, but that in itself is a major contribution to the conversation we ought to be having. If your interlocutor is still thinking about cancer as a disease and not a large category of diseases with different causes, different characteristics, and therefore different solutions, there isn't much point to continuing that conversation until the situation has been clarified.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#35

This idea of "curing cancer" as if cancer was a monolithic disease really needs to die. Cancer is just a catch-all term for somatic cell mutations that become unmanageable. There are as many ways to get "cancer" as there are ways to mutate cells into these sort of uncontrollable states. And there are cures for multiple cancers today (Imantinib, Herceptin, etc). There actually have been enormous recent strides in drug…

Yep. (Doctor here)

Im not sure who the target audience is for the article, but it strikes me as one where if the author were more knowledgeable on the subject, they would have many of the answers to what they are asking. It reads to me like someone writing "why are there still bugs in programming? Is it because of too many buttons on the screens?"

Im in agreement with you that most people don't grasp just how medicine as an area of study is unfathomably complex. It mimics a fractal in the sense that the deeper we go in trying to understand things it just opens up a wider scope of investigation.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#36
post #30

This idea of "curing cancer" as if cancer was a monolithic disease really needs to die. Cancer is just a catch-all term for somatic cell mutations that become unmanageable. There are as many ways to get "cancer" as there are ways to mutate cells into these sort of uncontrollable states. And there are cures for multiple cancers today (Imantinib, Herceptin, etc). There actually have been enormous recent strides in drug…

Yeah, I always make sure to say cancer(s) so we can skip the “it’s not one disease “ digression. It adds nothing to the conversation. According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to eliminate cancer(s): https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s

early detection? there are not enough diagnostic tools that are already applied systematically right now for patients who have known cancers. this kind of idea is great on paper but hardly scales.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#37
post #32

Kinda reminds me of that software law, where any hardware gains are negated by bloated software. Any medical discoveries are negated by deteriorating diet.

You're being downvoted but there's truth to it. Post-scarcity society has made calories so abundant that we're having a difficult time keeping weight-related diseases down across the globe.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#38
post #22

So Peter Thiel is an idiot. Biology especially human biology is a lot harder simply because experiments have bigger ethical issues. Even if you have desperate cancer patients there are limits how and what you can test. And we have others fields where all these brilliant people according to him are working and all the money goes and the problems are also not solved.

Every one of Peter Thiel's opinions is a dark provocative secret. He's very predictable

I was kind of surprised he was gay

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#40
post #35

This idea of "curing cancer" as if cancer was a monolithic disease really needs to die. Cancer is just a catch-all term for somatic cell mutations that become unmanageable. There are as many ways to get "cancer" as there are ways to mutate cells into these sort of uncontrollable states. And there are cures for multiple cancers today (Imantinib, Herceptin, etc). There actually have been enormous recent strides in drug…

Yep. (Doctor here) Im not sure who the target audience is for the article, but it strikes me as one where if the author were more knowledgeable on the subject, they would have many of the answers to what they are asking. It reads to me like someone writing "why are there still bugs in programming? Is it because of too many buttons on the screens?" Im in agreement with you that most people don't grasp just how medicin…

Most of the body is cells. Most of cancer would be rogue cells. Cancer can be cured if you can:

1. Identify rogue cells 2. Destroy the rogue cells.

You can use technology to do both and pretty much ignore biology.

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