Posted on 09/15/2010 5:20:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Scientists today hailed the 'end game' in the battle to understand the causes of cancer and how to treat it.
In a dramatic breakthrough compared to the discovery of penicillin, doctors have successfully trialled a drug that uses genetic data to target specific tumours.
Professor Mark Stratton, the head of the Cancer Genome Project, today said that researchers had reached a 'remarkable moment' in the fight against the disease.
'We have the potential to sequence cancer genomes in their thousands and tens of thousands to find all the mutations within them,' he told Radio 4's Today programme.
'We have entered an end game in which we will complete our understanding of what causes cancers.'
Professor Stratton, who is director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, was speaking after doctors confirmed the successful trial of one of the first gene-targeting drugs.
PLX4032 was found to reduce skin cancer tumours by 80 per cent in patients presenting with the mutated BRAF gene.
All cancers are the result of mutations in individual genes, but the process of finding the faulty DNA has taken a leap forward over the past few years thanks to new gene sequencing technologies.
The advantage of gene targeting drugs is that they only interfere with cells with the mutation and leave healthy tissue alone.
The advance has been compared to the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic which revolutionised the treatment of infectious disease.
Doctors believe using genetic data will optimise the effectiveness of treatments in individual patients.
Dr Paul Chapman, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, said: 'This is the beginning of personalised medicine in melanoma.'
However, scientists still face a colossal task of unravelling every genetic mutation for every form of cancer.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Wonderful news! I hope it works out!
Please note that Generating comprehensive catalogues of human cancer mutations will require a tremendous amount of work and collaboration over the coming years.
Interferon, monoclonal antibodies, redirected T-cells, fetal stem cells...
Long history of false hopes. I hope this one works out. At the very least, it may add to the body of knowledge and bring the day of triumph that much closer.
I lost my dad, 4 years ago today, to cancer. Hope this starts to save lives very soon.
Unlikely with Obamacare. Too expensive.
“Sounds interesting, but...
Interferon, monoclonal antibodies, redirected T-cells, fetal stem cells...
“Long history of false hopes. I hope this one works out. At the very least, it may add to the body of knowledge and bring the day of triumph that much closer.”
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I saw an optimistic piece several years ago on the subject, though the tone was more that there were a number of promising avenues opening up than that any specific one was due to lead to the cure very soon. Then the article considered what a successful treatment for cancer would mean for human longevity in general. The immediate prospect was an enormous increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s in assisted care homes because elderly people wouldn’t be dying of cancer before Alzheimer’s could get them. The implication was that if cancer can be treated, a preventive treatment for Alzheimer’s or a treatment for other age-related dementia due to strokes had better be found as well, or the social welfare system would be catastrophically overloaded by mid-century.
Coming soon to a country near you.
As a radiation oncologist, I would love to be put out of business by these advances. However, I suspect I’ll be very busy for years to come.
The current situation with prostate cancer screening is that the net negatives from unnecessary treatment outweigh the positives for those who actually benefit from early detection. Which is all well and good, unless you're the individual patient.
The age old quandary, public benefit versus private choice, and the basic reason why publicly managed “health” systems are frequently harmful to the individual.
On a similiar note, the reason why we’re seeing so many elderly people with cancer now is because the cardiologists have been so successful. Many folks being diagnosed with a malignancy in their 70s would have been dead of their heart disease in their 50s 20years ago. Gotta go of something.
And learning new hardware every year or so, too from the looks of it. CyberKnife’s looking pretty interesting, for example.
It’s very interesting, however, it’s being over-sold as a cure-all.
Un-necessary. Take a biopsy of the cancer, sequence the genes, identify the mutations by comparison to that individuals normal body cells, and fabricate a targeting molecule. The technology to do this is very near reality.
Great! Just in time for obamacare. This new treatment will be available to the elite only!
As always... pretty much.
I’m crossing my fingers .............................. FRegards
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