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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

#121

Post by inglor_cz »

mattlondon wrote: post #108
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.

I said it elsewhere but I'll say it here - we need one of the top 10 richest people in the world - the Bezos, the Musks etc - to suddenly get very interested at a personal level about cancer treatment. Then the money will flow.

Bezos and several other billionaires stuck a load of money into Altos Labs, an organization that studies aging and longevity.

Cancer prevention is downstream from that, as cancer frequency grows exponentially with age. If you can truly rejuvenate a person, you will also reduce their risk of cancer.

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

#122

Post by ticulatedspline »

spligak wrote: post #103
Gethsemane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 haven't written about it publicly, but I can elaborate here. I don't mind answering further questions about it even if you believe they'd make me uncomfortable - they won't. I've come to terms with what's happening to my body and that I may not benefit from my efforts. Background: ~3 years ago I was diagnosed with a very rare MPLW515L-driven blood cancer known as a myeloproliferative neoplasm. My hematopoietic stem…

wow, very interesting I can't say I've really ever heard of anyone financing research themselves, hope things work out and maybe a treatment arrives in time for you.

As an aside if you end up cryogenically freezing yourself for a future treatment don't forget to actually cure your boneitis when they thaw you out.

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

#124

Post by spligak »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #80
Gethsemane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Seconding this comment. I would love to read a write-up about your experience and how you’ve been trying to work on solutions for yourself. Stories like these are valuable to the field and inspiring to other folks dealing with a tough diagnosis.

Thank you. I want to make sure you see the comment above - I think it was your comment that nudged me into writing it :) Happy to answer any other questions, here or over email (in my user profile).

> other folks dealing with a tough diagnosis

The toughest part has been the spiritual journey. Loneliness unlike anything I've experienced. I felt forgotten without the opportunity to be known in the first place. I was happy - and emotional - to learn I wasn't alone. It took me 2 years, but I've found my people.

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

#125

Post by gleenn »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #112
andy_ppp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When have you most successfully hacked a non-computer system to your advantage?" Amazing resourcefulness, you should consider applying to YC if you haven't! And I hope you manage to find a solution to your problem it sounds very promising.

And by the way, when Anthropic (sic) tells you that it's too dangerous to allow GPT-2/GPT-3/GPT-4/GPT-5/Sonnet/Opus/Mythos/Fable to discuss human biology, and some of us object vociferously to their premise, this is what we're talking about.

I haven't heard anyone specifically state their justification for blocking bio research along I can only assume it's to prevent manufacturing bio weapons or virii?

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

#126

Post by spligak »

rozap wrote: post #88
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…

This is wild, have you written about it publicly, or can you expand on it here?

I have now :) I replied to a sibling comment. Thank you for the nudge to share.

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

#127

Post by spligak »

p1esk wrote: post #96
Gethsemane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Done! Wrote a bit more in a comment above. Thank you for the interest.

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

#128

Post by cyberax »

inglor_cz wrote: post #118
cyberax wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some ideas about making it triggerable. So first you load the cells with a protein that is ready to start shredding but is inactive. Then you trigger it with a second compound.

This will also cause problems because too many cells die at once. See the comments in other threads; killing the entire cancer at once is very hard on the body.

Tumor lysis syndrome is a thing, but it can be managed. It's far better than the alternative.

The new therapies will also likely be applied after surgical resection and/or classic therapies to reduce the bulk of the cancer.

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

#129

Post by himata4113 »

Does anyone know a website where I can see/read of how many cancers (and their variants) we've effectively solved, have drugs to negate their effects, have experimental drugs for and uncurable cancers? I think that graph would be awe inspiring looking at the past decade of advancements.

What's more crazy is that we're slowly going from millenia, to decades, to likely years in the near future from being presented a biological problem and achieving the next milestone in solving it. We might have "AI", but we also have brilliant minds right now that are speeding up development to a pace that would be unimaginable just few years ago.

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

#130

Post by ufmace »

shevy-java wrote: post #73
perlgeek wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRISPR is foremost a research tool. Calling it "extremely overhyped" without restricting it medical treatment seems disingenuous. The CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool was developed in 2012, so I don't find it surprising that merely 14 years later, there's only one approved treatment. From discovery to approval, drug development often takes 10-15 years, and often much longer for novel techniques. So I'd say it too early…

Why does it take 20 years? Except, of course, that it does not work nowhere near as well as it is being promoted - aka hyped. mRNA vaccines are also quite different. Do they modify the DNA? Of course not. So that's already very different.

One of the reasons is, you don't get really good data on how something works until you start running clinical trials for it. It's all very time-consuming - having to plan how the trial is going to work, getting approval for it, finding subjects who meet the criteria (here, a specific type of cancer at a specific stage probably) and sites near them willing to work with you, manufacturing and shipping the treatments, and only then can you start gathering data. If it didn't work, you gotta start over, And it all costs a boatload of money too.
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