Posted on 10/24/2010 1:26:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
SALMONELLA, the bacteria best known for causing food poisoning, could be used to cure people of cancer, Scottish research suggests.
Scientists at Glasgow University have discovered how a protein in the bug manipulates what happens in the body's cells, causing them to die off.
This ability could be directed to kill cancerous cells, potentially curing the disease.
In future it is hoped that special forms of salmonella could be injected into patients to destroy their cancer, before they are treated with antibiotics to rid them of any remaining bacteria.
Cancer experts have welcomed the research, which could, after extensive testing, lead to new treatments in the next five to ten years.
Dr Donal Wall, who worked on the study, said the team had discovered how salmonella uses an enzyme, known as caspase-3, to spread inflammation in the body. A protein in the bacteria called SipA causes the enzyme to proliferate, prompting cell death.
The scientists, whose work was funded by medical research charity Tenovus Scotland, hope this process could be amplified and directed at cancerous cells, with the bacteria effectively killing the tumours.
Wall said: "In order to infect, the bacteria use a lot of different proteins which they inject into the host cells.
"What we have discovered is that the bacteria are managing to use one of the host cell's enzymes to help them.
"The enzyme is taking the bacterial proteins and cutting them up, inadvertently helping the bacteria making these proteins a lot more effective during infection."
Wall said this process was in itself interesting in the study of how diseases develop. "But what is really interesting is that the enzyme it is using is very important in the process of cell death," he said.
"This is often defective in diseases like cancer, so we think, if we can harness this ability the bacteria have to encourage cell death then we may be able to use this ability for the treatment of cancer."
He added: "We believe if we can take this and bring it further then we can possibly create a strain of salmonella that will be a lot more effective when it gets to the tumour site," he said.
The researchers hope to use a deactivated strain of salmonella to develop the treatment for cancer, which would not cause other infections.
After treatment, the patient could be treated with antibiotics to get rid of the salmonella bacteria.
Sounds more like it may make zombies.
In Oregon, Art Robinson is running against Pete DeFazio. Robinson is not a politician, he is a scientist. He has written many papers on many topics. He was recently interviewed by Mr. Rachel Maddow, who dredged up a paper from 15 years ago in which Robinson discussed hormesis -- and, based on her limited understanding of this scientific concept, she accused him of wanting to spread radiation around, because radiation is "good for you".
Robinson tore her a new one (though she was too stupid to ever realize this) explaining that hormesis is very complicated, that it would be impossible to defend a single sentence plucked out of a dense scientific work, and that she was clearly smearing him.
He showed brilliance and backbone. And Maddow just shook her head and commented that he was a nutjob.
Bottomline: These Scottish scientists better watch out, because the Left will never forget their nefarious plot to give everyone salmonella.
So in the future scientists will say “it’s okay to eat a Big Mac. Just make sure it’s undercooked and improperly handled.”
Well, it already does, just the hard way.
Its no big secret that any ‘bug’ that causes a high fever cures cancer, but some bugs are more lethal than many cancers.
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I'm not a scientist, but I'm underwhelmed.
It would be great if we could throw away scattergun treatments like chemo and radiation that cause so much collateral damage, and use methods that precisely target and kill only cancer cells. Truly a magic bullet if they can make it work.
Problem is they don't say how they get their microscopic assassins to recognize cancerous (and only cancerous) cells. I guess that remains to be discovered.
Hate to sound cynical, but if I were a researcher trolling for cash, I might claim I was on the verge of a "cure for cancer".
Once again, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but I'd need some more information before I got out my checkbook.
If it is effective, look for it to save lives in America sometime after 2020. It takes that long for the govt bureaucracy to fleece the pharmaceutical companies for millions, if not billions of dollars.
Maddows insulting interview of Robinson was an example of fear-mongering for any scientific announcement that might be misunderstood or perhaps someday disproven. So what? I want scientists to have crazy ideas, and I worry that "thinking outside the box" may someday be discouraged.
This sounds interesting up to the point where once the cancer is gone, they eliminate the remaining salmonella with antibiotics.
This may not be a good idea. To start with, as long as the salmonella remains under control, hopefully it will continue to destroy any returning cancer. And cancer can be pretty sneaky.
When cancer is attacked, often it will try and adjust itself to defend against the attack. For this reason, there is a “rule of 3” for cancer, to try and use three different attacks at once, to overwhelm its defenses.
Plus, the underlying circumstances that allowed the cancer to emerge in the first place might still exist. So once cancer free, a new cancer will emerge to take its place, sooner or later.
Yet another situation is that human intestinal flora includes from 300-1000 different types of bacteria, of which 30-40 different types take up 99% of the space. Many of the larger group are pathogenic, but are kept under control by the dominant strains, by literally being denied the space to reproduce.
In addition, there are a truly vast number of viruses in the flora, the majority of which are “bacteriophage”, or bacteria eating. So we’re talking about a very complex environment, here.
More and more doctors are seeing antibiotic resistant bacteria. And these are not “out there”, but already living inside our intestines.
When we take a potent antibiotic, it wipes out a lot of our normal strains of bacteria, leaving a lot of empty space. And though normally, an antibiotic resistant bacteria is harmless, because it can occupy all this now empty space, it has a population explosion.
Which can be very, very bad.
So to wipe out this salmonella, which may be keeping the cancer away, you risk getting a horrible infection because of the antibiotics.
I always knew Sam and Ella would amount to something someday..
My only experience with Salmonella was that it was a great weight reducer...50 pounds disappeared in a matter of days.
Ping
Perhaps we should invest more in using radio frequencies to cure diseases.
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