Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion • Hacker News Board

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#21

Post by someone7x » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:19 AM UTC

rolltiide wrote: post #20

leafeewick wrote: post #19

Would open sourcing all cancer research and allowing anyone to contribute and share in the open source community... would that assist in potentially finding a cure/treatment for various cancers or would the profit motive be required for these research to be successful?

There are a few case studies on that Protein folding and grid computing networks are based on altruism and enthusiast novelty interest “wow I can use my spare computational power on this global network of other enthusiasts to cure cancer”, you know, novel in 2004. As soon as some enthusiasts introduced cryptocurrency to these networks, see Curecoin and Gridcoin, users of those quickly became the most significant cont…

> So a profit motive will always beat out a non-market based approach, which isn’t really news

Call me a dreamer, but I wonder if that would remain true in a UBI-style environment?

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#22

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:47 AM UTC

asdfman123 wrote: post #8

signal_space wrote: post #4

Many cancers are heterogeneous. Once a malignant community forms the established organized population deteriorates into chaotic competition.

Wait, are we back to talking about how to organize programming teams again?

The reason disease, viruses, technologies, and team organisation are likened to Darwinian information transfer systems is because that's what they are.

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#23

Post by rolltiide » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

someone7x wrote: post #21

rolltiide wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few case studies on that Protein folding and grid computing networks are based on altruism and enthusiast novelty interest “wow I can use my spare computational power on this global network of other enthusiasts to cure cancer”, you know, novel in 2004. As soon as some enthusiasts introduced cryptocurrency to these networks, see Curecoin and Gridcoin, users of those quickly became the most significant cont…

> So a profit motive will always beat out a non-market based approach, which isn’t really news Call me a dreamer, but I wonder if that would remain true in a UBI-style environment?

if there is a scarce useful resource being used and acquired then yes?

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#24

Post by 1e-9 » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

Although there tends to be great molecular diversity in each person's cancer, there are still avenues of genetic commonality that can be pursued. For example, the tumor suppression gene TP53 is mutated in a high percentage of cancer cases. If this mutation can be reliably repaired, our ability to treat a number of cancers could be significantly improved. There are recent results suggesting that this may indeed soon be the case (for example, treatment with APR-246).

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#25

Post by breck » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #2

Yep, if we really want to cure cancer, we need to go back into the tissue archives and study every single cancer that's ever been diagnosed, at the molecular level, to start getting our heads around what really happened to all those people. 10 million people a year. Every year. For a the last 6-7 decades of chemotherapy. Meanwhile, there's this perverse medicolegal incentive to retain the excised tissue samples for t…

I was unaware of this 10 year rule. Here at UH Cancer Center I know there are teams with samples in the freezer from decades ago. Any links where I can learn more?

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#26

Post by ackfoo » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

coding123 wrote: post #18

If we really want to cure cancer we should stop polluting our air, water and food. And even if we can't stop we need to find ways to disincentivize making products that require our air and water to be polluted. For food: https://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/verticalfarming.h...

I applaud your motivation, and I agree with your suggestion, but that's not where most cancer comes from. Most cancer arises out of a random failure of the mechanisms underlying apoptosis.

Random mutation rates are linked to rates of cell division. There is an error every x number of times a cell divides. The faster cells divide (say, because of inflammation caused by cigarette smoke), the greater the risk of a random mutation that will disable the normal mechanisms of cell death.

Environmental mutagens and carcinogens play a part by damaging DNA or increasing cell division rates (asbestos, for example, which destroys immune cells come to engulf the invader, leading to a cycle of cell damage) but they are only a tiny part of the picture.

Cancer is caused by math, in a very real sense. Mutation rates * cell division rates = risk of cancer. You can absolutely get cancer without any adverse environmental exposure, which is why some children get cancer very early on--genetic factors increase risk.

The universe is chaotic. There is often no reason for what happens to an individual. It's just random chance. Man's search for meaning is often futile.

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#27

Post by lioeters » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 3:47 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #11

leggomylibro wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you do hear humanity likened to a cancer fairly often. Look at what we do to other species, and we're even trying to metastasize to other planets. Lucky for us that this universe doesn't go in for it's millennial checkups, huh?

If cosmic things had millennial checkups, they'd be cosmic-scale in their hypochondria. That would be like me getting a checkup every second.

I wanted to find out the unit of time of "every billion years" - first thought was "billennial".

Apparently, a millenium is otherwise known as a kiloannum; a megaannum is a million years, and a gigaannum is a billion.

So, a reasonable universe should be getting gigaannual checkups.

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#28

Post by ben-schaaf » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

coding123 wrote: post #18

If we really want to cure cancer we should stop polluting our air, water and food. And even if we can't stop we need to find ways to disincentivize making products that require our air and water to be polluted. For food: https://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/verticalfarming.h...

We better also stop polluting the sun so we can cure skin cancer.

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#29

Post by cannonedhamster » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

coding123 wrote: post #18

If we really want to cure cancer we should stop polluting our air, water and food. And even if we can't stop we need to find ways to disincentivize making products that require our air and water to be polluted. For food: https://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/verticalfarming.h...

Cancer has always existed regardless of pollution. It's cell mutation, which is part of evolution. You can't fix it by getting rid of pollution. You fix it by making your own immune system recognize it again so that it can not the cell properly. Either that or restore the proper cell death instruction. Cancer deaths have been going down for years, firstly due to less smoking and less salted meat in our diets and now due to better understanding. It's slow, but it's steady and every oncologist in the world is waiting for the hockey stick moment.

Re: Every Cancer Patient Is One in a Billion

#30

Post by cannonedhamster » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #13

killjoywashere wrote: post #2

Yep, if we really want to cure cancer, we need to go back into the tissue archives and study every single cancer that's ever been diagnosed, at the molecular level, to start getting our heads around what really happened to all those people. 10 million people a year. Every year. For a the last 6-7 decades of chemotherapy. Meanwhile, there's this perverse medicolegal incentive to retain the excised tissue samples for t…

What would be the value in finding a cure for cancer for a patient who is already dead if that patients particular mutation is unlikely to be found in another person?

As has already been stated you can use the prior tissue to better individualize current treatment. For example I'm a really rare patient, most people in my situation are already dead by this point in their treatment. Chemotherapy worked so well most of my primary tumor was gone within days and they haven't seen it since my 6th treatment. They still think it's there but it's generally too small to be seen. They didn't save the samples from my cancer to figure out why it worked so welln or why I've been able to handle aggressive treatment for far longer than average with minimal side effects. No hair loss, minimal nerve damage, etc. If that information could help even one other person, I would want it out there. I've contributed to every study I can be a part of and consented to every bit of sharing of my generic material I could, I only wish I could do more. Nearly everyone with my same diagnosis at the same time as me is dead. Speaking just for myself, being able to contribute to keeping other people from ever going through this means the world to me.