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Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

jaist.ac.jp

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Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#41

Post by estearum »

colordrops wrote: post #15
estearum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The catch is that there are thousands of promising therapies in animal models/pre-human testing. A very very tiny fraction of them will ever make it to market for a variety of both good and not-good reasons.

What's the difference between a good and not-good reason to not go to market?

Good reasons:

* Most drug candidates just don't work

* Even among the drug candidates that do, figuring how to safely deliver them to their target is very hard (looks similar to "just doesn't work")

Bad reasons:

* It's too expensive to prove that a drug works

* It's too difficult to differentiate the patients for whom a drug works and the patients for whom it does not

* It is very hard to predict recruitment and to actually recruit patients for clinical trials

* There aren't enough people with the disorder who are also rich enough to afford treatment to justify development

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#43

Post by anjel »

xupybd wrote: post #28
brailsafe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not against AI summaries being on HN, however, users should verify and cite sources so others can verify. I don't see how they contribute anything to a discussion. Even a speculative comment organically produced is more worthwhile than feeding a slop machine back into itself. I don't go out for coffee to discuss LLM summaries with friends, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that here. Earlier today…

It is search if you ask it to produce a list of links. It does well at filtering information for you. Going to primary sources is required to verify what it says but it can reduce the leg work rather a lot.

Ask it to solve a tough Euler Math puzzle with the search button on and it just copies the answer from the web. Turn search off and it actually computes the answer. Funny how the search button is taken away though.

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#44

Post by justinc8687 »

eek2121 wrote: post #16
DivingForGold wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I know hearing this gets old, however, please review sources outside of LLMs for accuracy. LLMs take a whole bunch off stuff from all over the internet and distill it down to something you can consume. Those sources include everything from reddit to a certain de-wormer that folks still think treats COVID (side note: I've a few long COVID victims in a support group I am in, and they are not happy about the disinfo tha…

I've had quite good luck asking Gemini and ChatGPT to include links to research papers for every claim they make. Not only can I review at least the abstracts but I find when I do this, they'll retract some of the hallucinations they've have made in prior messages. It almost seems (and maybe they do) in their web searching tools, reread the content they include. Thus, greatly reducing errors, with minimal extra effort on my part.

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#45

Post by comp_bio »

kinj28 wrote: post #40

I have been working with my dad on his cancer treatment since last year. My interest in the topic has only peaked ever since. (Disclaimer- I am an engineer and not a microbiologist/doctor) Mutations and wrong copying of genome happens all the time in the body and some enzyme has the job of correcting the mutated genes so it doesn’t get into the system. Level 2 defence is T cells killing it as identified as foreign bo…

This is a fascinating niche of evolutionary biology that I have worked in for a while. The short answer is that yes, as far as we can tell all organisms evolve increasingly more efficient replication machinery, however at some point the strength of selection is no longer powerful enough to overcome the strength of genetic drift and some degree of error rate persists. As far as we can tell it seems like population size governs where this balance ends up such that small populations have high mutation rates and large populations have reduced mutation rates. Michael Lynch coined the term drift barrier hypothesis to describe this phenomenon. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23077252/

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#46

Post by octaane »

Sorry, as someone in this field, this is bullshit. It is in mice.

Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote:

"This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)"

PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are, you guessed it, PD-L1 positive. At high percentages, ranging from 1 to 50%. Are these authors even familiar with the state of the art when it comes to cancer medications? Mouse tumors do not equate to people tumors. Many tumor types are not PD-l1 positive.

Doxy is an ancient SOC chemo.

This is a nothing burger.

Give me phase II/III clinical trials, and then let me know what their PFS/OS was after 5 years. and what the medians were at 3- and 5-years. Also, ORR and CR and needed.

CAR-T is ahead of the game, and will be the ultimate winner here as it grows to scale.

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#47

Post by kinj28 »

octaane wrote: post #46

Sorry, as someone in this field, this is bullshit. It is in mice. Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote: "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)" PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are, you guessed it, PD-L1 positive. At h…

In my dad’s case- he had gastric melonama. We surgically removed it and as consolidation We administered pd-L1 Immune checkpoint inhibitor. Melonama recurred again in 6 months time. This time in esophagus.

As an engineer I think all drugs tested and efficacies studied are on statistically not so significant data points. Given the permutations and combinations far exceed the clinical trials available and hence everything post clinical trial is also just an extended trial.

Wonder How to fix this? I am assuming heLa cells etc are also not the right test setup to have better test results.

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#48

Post by octaane »

kinj28 wrote: post #47
octaane wrote: post #46

Sorry, as someone in this field, this is bullshit. It is in mice. Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote: "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)" PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are, you guessed it, PD-L1 positive. At h…

In my dad’s case- he had gastric melonama. We surgically removed it and as consolidation We administered pd-L1 Immune checkpoint inhibitor. Melonama recurred again in 6 months time. This time in esophagus. As an engineer I think all drugs tested and efficacies studied are on statistically not so significant data points. Given the permutations and combinations far exceed the clinical trials available and hence everyth…

Keytruda, pembrolizumab, (what he probably received) can only do so much. If it was in his GI tract it was also elsewhere in multiple places. The PD-L1 drugs at this point have more than 400k patients treated, with decent efficacy. I'm sorry for your loss. If his melanoma had metastasized to his GI tract it was too late for anything except palliative care.

This drug has been used in a huge number of patients for more than 11 years; the next gen of drugs is currently being used. I'm sorry for my curt style of writing, but - people like your father have helped pave the way for that next generation of drugs by constraining clinical trial designs.

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#49

Post by kinj28 »

octaane wrote: post #48
kinj28 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my dad’s case- he had gastric melonama. We surgically removed it and as consolidation We administered pd-L1 Immune checkpoint inhibitor. Melonama recurred again in 6 months time. This time in esophagus. As an engineer I think all drugs tested and efficacies studied are on statistically not so significant data points. Given the permutations and combinations far exceed the clinical trials available and hence everyth…

Keytruda, pembrolizumab, (what he probably received) can only do so much. If it was in his GI tract it was also elsewhere in multiple places. The PD-L1 drugs at this point have more than 400k patients treated, with decent efficacy. I'm sorry for your loss. If his melanoma had metastasized to his GI tract it was too late for anything except palliative care. This drug has been used in a huge number of patients for more…

Nivumolab was the drug administered in adjuvant setting. Maybe you are right that 400k patient with decent efficacy - however pegged chances are about 70-80% and not 100. So my point is can there be a better test bench to try and inch closer to a better efficacy?

For example - if hela cells can be used for trials — can there be the cultured tissue be used instead of mice as day 1?

Also curious — how did the scientist decide on using a specific cell/protein to be used for checking if this is producing results. Is it a hunch or science ?

Re: Gut bacteria from amphibians and reptiles achieve tumor elimination in mice

#50

Post by bawolff »

estearum wrote: post #41
colordrops wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a good and not-good reason to not go to market?

Good reasons: * Most drug candidates just don't work * Even among the drug candidates that do, figuring how to safely deliver them to their target is very hard (looks similar to "just doesn't work") Bad reasons: * It's too expensive to prove that a drug works * It's too difficult to differentiate the patients for whom a drug works and the patients for whom it does not * It is very hard to predict recruitment and to a…

There is also the ole', drug works 20% of the time and kills the patient 80% of the time.
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