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Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

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Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#101

Post by ericjmorey »

glial wrote: post #61
petermcneeley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A biopsy is predicated on the idea that you can identify good from bad. You might not be able to identify the origin cell but you would be able to pick out metastasization. You certainly can take pictures. And not to be too reductive: cells are visible in a light microscope. The point is that the scale that cells are at is not really at the quantum level. People have been interacting with individual cells for decades…

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/

How did I miss this xkcd until now?

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#102

Post by slowmovintarget »

petermcneeley wrote: post #40
Zenzero wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The human body is a non-orthogonal system. Everything in it is interconnected and exists in interrelated dynamic tension. We're still finding new structures in living humans that went undetected in cadaver analysis [1].

If you've written any code at all, you know that a non-orthogonal system is incredibly complex. It isn't just a matter of complexity scaling linearly with the count of the individual parts. Complexity scales with the interactions between each component, and between the assemblages of those components that have emergent interactions. Change one line of code, and you get wildly different behavior in another part of the system, or seemingly nothing for a long time until the system deletes its own database suddenly one day.

Curing cancer is a dramatically broad statement, because each kind is different, interacts with a different part of the body, and has different ways of growing and sustaining itself. Each intervention causes a cluster of unintended side-effects, again, because the body is a non-orthogonal system. Even your simple statements fall flat. Most cancer cells disguise themselves as normal cells from the perspective of the body's immune system. It's why the cancer can grow at all. The other factor is that most things that would kill cancer cells would kill cells... in general. Pull one thread wrong, fix one bug the wrong way... you end up doing more harm than good.

Maybe we'll get to a point where we have combinations of nanotech and gene therapies that eliminate most cancers. But it won't be simple. Getting there in an ethical fashion makes it even harder. How do we experiment with this kind of nanotech (which is not even off the ground yet). How do we experiment with this kind of gene therapy (we have more traditional paths to tread here, but there are still some quandaries).

We're just not there yet, and I doubt it will ever be something as reductive as your two items.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-say-they-... (2018)

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#103

Post by slowmovintarget »

petermcneeley wrote: post #64
Zenzero wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine thinking you're teaching a pathologist anything about evaluating neoplastic cells.... Like even as a doctor who's not a pathologist I wouldn't dare because I know just how much I don't know compared to them. A CS grad thinking they can jump in on that is peak tech-centric hubris.

Appeals to authority tend not to fly in a hacker community which is all about questioning authority and the status quo. It is usually much better to respond with logic and refutation.

Terence Howard has some platonic solids for you.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#104

Post by cyberax »

grishka wrote: post #91
cyberax wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Levin's work smells like bullshit. And it's also just as reductionist, trying to represent everything as electrical interactions.

Not everything , only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way. And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect, because that's essentially what it is, it's cells "forgetting" that they are part of a larger whole that has goals more important than their own ones.

> Not everything, only morphogenesis, which is currently unexplained either way.

That's not true. We know a lot of molecular-level details about morphogenesis. The classic Sonic Hedgehog signalling is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein

Is it possible that electric potentials might play some role in some organisms? Certainly. However, we know for sure that they don't act alone. Chemical signalling definitely happens.

> And it does make sense for cancer to be a morphogenesis defect

It doesn't, really. Even assuming Levin's models are correct, most cancers have nothing to do with morphogenesis. Cancers are caused by internal genetic cell malfunctions, that stop them from reacting to external signals properly. It doesn't really matter if signals are electric or molecular ones.

The default state for normal human cells is "dead". If you take a random cell and put it in a Petri dish, it'll likely die. Most cells need to receive constant molecular signals from nearby cells to _not_ die. Once this mechanism is broken, you get cancer.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#105

Post by Zenzero »

petermcneeley wrote: post #100
Zenzero wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the problem is tumours Google paraneoplastic syndromes. Cancer is rarely a problem of just tumors. > just "laser" all the tumours out and problem solved right? No. The tumors don't just evaporate. The treatment causes tissue necrosis. Your laser causes inflammation. Even the high tech IMRT you're picturing has those problems. >Metastatic cancer is defined by essentially there being too many things to hit though,…

I dont get it. The first hit there says it is a rare disorder due to cancer; so this is already not the more common case. Second it is still due to the presence although not local of the tumor. If you destroy the tumor you may have a chance of resolving the condition. I am aware of necrosis. You need to either completely break down the cell or remove the material. Radiation of course does not do this but surgery of c…

Paraneoplastic syndromes are not rare buddy.

> My appeal to you would be to allow more disruption in this space

No. There is far too much disruption that we don't want/need. If you want to help, go put yourself through medical school first, and then bring your CS knowledge to supplement it.

Jumping in when you haven't learned the basics wastes everyone's time like you have here.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#106

Post by Zenzero »

petermcneeley wrote: post #98
bowsamic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’ve misjudged the culture here

Well more just the specific audience. A physician is basically the inverse of a hacker.

Yes. There are regimented silos within medicine that allow hacking in ways that attempt to minimize patient harm. Attempting to circumvent them is a good way to land in court.

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#107

Post by avinassh »

pieter_mj wrote: post #93
LarsDu88 wrote: post #15

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…

Cured, no. But largely preventable, yes. With a paradigm shift from genetic to metabolic.

Can you elaborate? Are there studies showing changes in metabolism preventing cancer?

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#108

Post by petermcneeley »

Zenzero wrote: post #105
petermcneeley wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont get it. The first hit there says it is a rare disorder due to cancer; so this is already not the more common case. Second it is still due to the presence although not local of the tumor. If you destroy the tumor you may have a chance of resolving the condition. I am aware of necrosis. You need to either completely break down the cell or remove the material. Radiation of course does not do this but surgery of c…

Paraneoplastic syndromes are not rare buddy. > My appeal to you would be to allow more disruption in this space No. There is far too much disruption that we don't want/need. If you want to help, go put yourself through medical school first, and then bring your CS knowledge to supplement it. Jumping in when you haven't learned the basics wastes everyone's time like you have here.

But you have not actually been able to point out the basics that I am missing. You mention a specific condition which is listed as rare via a google search [0]. This condition is also caused by tumors so again perhaps a subset of these cases are completely resolved just by destroying the cells.

The fact of the matter is that I think any kind of refutation is actually pretty difficult for you (perhaps due to the medical training). It likely would have been easier had you just agreed and said "Yes if you can destroy the cancer cells you can treat >90% of all cancer."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507890/

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#109

Post by killjoywashere »

petermcneeley wrote: post #108
Zenzero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraneoplastic syndromes are not rare buddy. > My appeal to you would be to allow more disruption in this space No. There is far too much disruption that we don't want/need. If you want to help, go put yourself through medical school first, and then bring your CS knowledge to supplement it. Jumping in when you haven't learned the basics wastes everyone's time like you have here.

But you have not actually been able to point out the basics that I am missing. You mention a specific condition which is listed as rare via a google search [0]. This condition is also caused by tumors so again perhaps a subset of these cases are completely resolved just by destroying the cells. The fact of the matter is that I think any kind of refutation is actually pretty difficult for you (perhaps due to the medic…

Tell you what, if you're bored and want to learn about this world, I recommend newcomers read Robert Weinberg, The Biology of Cancer, (2nd Edition): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0815342195

Re: Why haven't biologists cured cancer?

#110

Post by Zenzero »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #102
petermcneeley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The human body is a non-orthogonal system. Everything in it is interconnected and exists in interrelated dynamic tension. We're still finding new structures in living humans that went undetected in cadaver analysis [1]. If you've written any code at all, you know that a non-orthogonal system is incredibly complex. It isn't just a matter of complexity scaling linearly with the count of the individual parts. Complexity…

> The other factor is that most things that would kill cancer cells would kill cells... in general. Pull one thread wrong, fix one bug the wrong way... you end up doing more harm than good.

Yep. It's like modifying an undocumented API where there are tens of thousands of endpoints and you know there are a few dozen services that rely on each endpoint, and probably a few dozen more that nobody knows about. You are only allowed test runs that are expected to succeed, since test failures = death. Your dev environment is a mouse. Every change gets pushed to prod with no option to revert.

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