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CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

innovativegenomics.org

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Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#91

Post by Vaslo »

polshaw wrote: post #71
whyenot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the voting system works at Reddit encourages group think and bubbles. All it takes is five more down votes than up votes and a comment or post essentially disappears from view. It's a design that actively avoids debate.

That's a huge misreading. Hiding comments in the UI empirically does not suppress discussion, if anything it actually attracts engagement. Lots of people are seeking the "wrong" to "correct" it. Suppressed debate is almost universally due to biased/captured moderation teams aggressively using bans.

You're wrong, because if your karma fall below a certain number, your comments wont show up anymore. I can show you if you like.

People shouldn't be blocked from commenting because their karma goes negative. Spamming, hateful talk, etc should be a completely different system. Just because what you say is unpopular (in one place mind you) doesn't mean your words should be hidden.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#92

Post by acomjean »

spligak wrote: post #50
ordinaryradical wrote: post #32

CRISPR is an extremely overhyped approach which found a marketing engine via popular science. There is 1 FDA approved CRISPR therapy as compared to 7 for AAV and 7 for Lentivirus. Counting all viral vector therapies that have been approved, we’re sitting at 19 approved therapies versus 1 for CRISPR. I think CRISPR ideas in a lab are just an easy way into the mainstream press, but viral vector delivery is the real fut…

You're correct about CRISPR Cas9. The off-target affects are difficult to manage. The paper describes Cas12a2. This is a different mechanism with discovery origins in - of all things - agriculture. It does not attempt in any way to reprogram cells. It uses a guide protein to locate a specific mutation with exacting precision and, when it activates, unleashes total destruction of the cell. The implications of Cas12a2…

We did whole genome crispr designs at my last university job. Can confirm that off target effects are an issue with cas9. Pattern matching across the genome to see if a design is unique takes some time. These were interesting pipelines to work on.

It’s only a matter of time before the next better thing shows up.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#93

Post by im3w1l »

perlgeek wrote: post #30
amelius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(removed)

You can target an individual by injecting that very individual with something lethal. If that's not what you want, you'd need something like a virus to spread it. But then you have to ask yourself: what if that virus mutates? The specialization to certain gene markers is an evolutionary disadvantage, so evolution will tend to make it lose that restriction. Ooops.

I can think of ways to deal with that. I think the threat is serious enough that I won't post about those ways publicly.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#94

Post by jyounker »

red_admiral wrote: post #85

For the state of new cancer-killing drugs and bottlenecks getting them approved, see also the top few posts on https://www.writingruxandrabio.com/archive The post on AI and and cures for cancer is https://www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/a-response-to-dario-amo... .

Cancer treatments are really scary things. There are all sorts of impacts that we have no idea about when using drugs that fundamentally attack pieces of our own body.

My partner of many years had one of the nastiest cancers around, one with no targeted treatments. She went through an experimental combination of existing drugs. Some of the side effects included:

  * Her heart stopping during a drug infusion. This happened multiple times over the 18 months of treatment.

  * Disseminated fungal infections.

  * Sepis because holes were developing in her GI tract.
This is just a sampler of the horrible effects.

This was a good response. Other patients just died from the drug combination.

This is what going slowly looks like in the world of cancer treatment.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#96

Post by p1esk »

Gethsemane wrote: post #63
spligak wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct about CRISPR Cas9. The off-target affects are difficult to manage. The paper describes Cas12a2. This is a different mechanism with discovery origins in - of all things - agriculture. It does not attempt in any way to reprogram cells. It uses a guide protein to locate a specific mutation with exacting precision and, when it activates, unleashes total destruction of the cell. The implications of Cas12a2…

Have you written about your experience anywhere? It would be interesting to see how you approached the research sector as a layperson. Are there any plans to move to in vivo? Best of luck with your research!

I’d also like to read about your experience.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#97

Post by rowanG077 »

huxley wrote: post #52
rowanG077 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what this comment is trying to say. Theranos was a company build from the ground up on fraud. Apple, for all its faults, is provably at the forefront of technology used in personal computing devices.

I think you've captured exactly what they are trying to say

This doesn't exactly make it clearer. I can think of two things it can imply. Neither make a lick of sense:

- Theranos was at the forefront of medical technology

- Apple is a fraudulent company to the core

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#98

Post by csallen »

sssilver wrote: post #5

What economic / political model would cause the society to prioritize this over adtech? It seems so unsettling that brilliant human minds are trying hard, every day, to figure out how to make it impossible to bypass watching ads on YouTube, instead of helping cure cancer.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, it's quite an interesting (and important!) question.

Also wonder, outside of politics and economics, whether there's a social and cultural component that can contribute. TV shows, movies, books, and other forms of media that put science and scientists in the spotlight in a positive light can be tremendously inspirational.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#99

Post by rowanG077 »

im3w1l wrote: post #81
rowanG077 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what this comment is trying to say. Theranos was a company build from the ground up on fraud. Apple, for all its faults, is provably at the forefront of technology used in personal computing devices.

Apple is first and foremost an affordable luxury brand that makes sleek hardware.

And theranos did that too? Theranos, a medical company, was an affordable luxury (??) brand that makes sleek hardware? In fact the hardware was not sleek at all, since it didn't function.

Re: CRISPR tech selectively shreds cancer cells, including "undruggable" cancers

#100

Post by asdff »

roncesvalles wrote: post #55
ordinaryradical wrote: post #32

CRISPR is an extremely overhyped approach which found a marketing engine via popular science. There is 1 FDA approved CRISPR therapy as compared to 7 for AAV and 7 for Lentivirus. Counting all viral vector therapies that have been approved, we’re sitting at 19 approved therapies versus 1 for CRISPR. I think CRISPR ideas in a lab are just an easy way into the mainstream press, but viral vector delivery is the real fut…

CRIPSR was a game-changer for genetics research. A lot of gene knockout studies use CRISPR. However, it was always weirdly overhyped for clinical use from the beginning and this was obvious to anyone with a genetics background. The public in general doesn't have a good understanding of basic genetics and I blame high school science curriculums for not covering it well enough. Too much time is wasted on Mendelian gene…

It was a game changer in terms of making things cheaper and a little easier. However the actual functionality was still possible with other methods. Zinc finger nucleases for example. Knockdown via RNAi is often still done because a knockout target may be inviable, and it is pretty cheap and easy to knockdown in most model systems.
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