To wonder if I just helped to cure a cancer...

[TheWonderfulFanny]

Following a link from the midwife story I came across this article about a Swedish researcher who needs a miniscule £1 million to get a cancer-eating virus through initial testing and into human trials.

So I bunged some money over via paypal and am now feeling less guilty for spunking £70 on ankle boots I don't need earlier today.

A couple of extracts from the article -

"More people have full-blown neuroendocrine tumours (known as NETs or carcinoids) than stomach, pancreas, oesophagus or liver cancer. And the incidence is growing: there has been a five-fold increase in the number of people diagnosed in the last 30 years"

"a cancerous cell is immortal; through its mutations it has somehow managed to turn off the bits of its genetic programme that enforce cell suicide. This means that, if a suitable virus infects a cancer cell, it could continue to replicate inside it uncontrollably, and causes the cell to 'lyse' ? or, in non-technical language, tear apart. The progeny viruses then spread to cancer cells nearby and repeat the process. A virus becomes, in effect, a cancer of cancer. In Prof Essand's laboratory studies his virus surges through the bloodstreams of test animals, rupturing cancerous cells with Viking rapacity"

Care to join me? Seems extraordinary that they should be so close to something that could have saved Steve Jobs' life - and could still save the writer's friend - and there's no funding because it's not commercial enough...

it is a bit of a straw man argument though ivykate. Nobody said don't worry about prevention. Trying one's upmost to find a cure does not mean you don't care about prevention. And caring about prevention does not negate the 100% need for a cure.

I'm hoping his success on the issue of apoptosis will get somewhere and properly move this all forward for many other cancers as well.

Oh excellent, I didn't get totally shot down then!

And pofaced is now on my list of people who Know Stuff.

It is an odd thing, isn't it? That the first response of many is to be suspicious of any research that is not attracting big money.

I realise that not all of these research projects will bring a result, but surely it is worth a shot. Especially these more gentle therapies.

Clifton Leaf, a childhood cancer survivor and journalist wrote this article way back in 2004 but it is still true today - 'Why we're losing the war on cancer and how to win it'

money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/03/22/365076/index.htm

'So why aren't we winning this decades-old war on terror--and what can we do now to turn it around?

That was the question I asked dozens of researchers, physicians, and epidemiologists at leading cancer hospitals around the country; pharmacologists, biologists, and geneticists at drug companies and research centers; officials at the FDA, NCI, and NIH; fundraisers, activists, and patients. During three months of interviews in Houston, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other cancer hubs, I met many of the smartest and most deeply committed people I've ever known. The great majority, it should be said, were optimistic about the progress we're making, believing that the grim statistics belie the wealth of knowledge we've gained--knowledge, they say, that will someday lead to viable treatments for the 100-plus diseases we group as cancer. Most felt, despite their often profound misgivings about the way research is done, that we're on the right path.

Yet virtually all these experts offered testimony that, when taken together, describes a dysfunctional "cancer culture"--a groupthink that pushes tens of thousands of physicians and scientists toward the goal of finding the tiniest improvements in treatment rather than genuine breakthroughs; that fosters isolated (and redundant) problem solving instead of cooperation; and rewards academic achievement and publication over all else.'

not a chance when using animals.

well to be honest mice are not a great model, we would do far better using primates, but don't for ethical reasons. Often tissue cultures are used.

I'm not a scientist, but agree with MmeL and others, there is a huge difference between snake oil and the sort of rigorous scientific research that happens to be underfunded. I was aware of research into immuno and viro therapy some years ago, as a friend of mine was a research assistant on what must have been one of the earliest projects in this field. Good luck to Prof Essand I say with his research.

LilQ
I see what you are saying, but if it were my child in a cancer ward, I'd be doing the mice experiments myself. Sorry about that.

the problem with mice, and Leaf touches on this in his article, is that we have cured cancer in mice many times over. Mouse models cannot mimic a cancer that has grown and evolved over time to cheat a body's own immune system, and this is well known. better to treat animals that already have cancer [naturally] and this is happening in some studies with dogs.

That is interesting, Po. I always wondered how well the experiments could be transferred to humans.

Presumably thalidomide was tested on animals before being given to humans.

The problem with thalidomide wasn't about it being tested on animals or not but that due to a lack of sufficient pharmaceutical regulation a different isomer of thalidomide was eventually produced to the one that had been previously tested.

An isomer is a compound that has the same molecular formation but different properties due to structural rearrangement of the atoms. I remember that thalidomide exists as a L-isomer and a R-isomer and that because data wasn't rigoursly recorded nobody noticed this change. Seems hard to believe that something like this would happen now

Just at the thalidomide story. Do you know if they've ever done anything with the other isomer BakingAddict?

Fine to put some money into the research but please don't get too optimistic. Many, many promising looking treatments in the early stages of testing fail the later stages. I've worked on a few trials, and all sorts of problems can come up.

Thalidomide is used to treat cancer and I think there is research into using it for other things too.

That is shocking, Bakingaddict. And very scary.

I presume that regulations are much tighter now?

Of course caution is to be commended, Giraffe but I do think that we need to keep optimistic because the hope is the driving force behind the research.

I suppose though that scientists look at this kind of research with very different eyes than bystanders do because they know the fail rate.

On the subject of research from alternative sources, have a look at this.

US teen invents advanced cancer test using Google

"Fifteen-year-old high school student Jack Andraka ... has created a pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the gold standard in the field".

Ummm BiGPharm are already researching this in the form of the canary pox technology this has already resulted in a non-adjuvanted cat vaccine. There also active research using this technology to replace cystic fibrosis genes with non- active genes. I first attended a lecture on this technology in 1993.

The problem is that high risk research must still be funded, and when you think of the millions invested in drug based research which will never cure cancer but only buy time in the realms of weeks/months, it is pretty unacceptable to think if Carl June had not been given the funds to carry out his small 3 man trial, teh massive breakthrough in the immunotherapy field would never have happened. You simply must have visionaries and optimism, cautious optimism.

virotherapy is being used in various research labs around the world lonecat.

I would be very VERY wary about funding an individual laboratory. I also can't help but think that one million is indeed miniscule in getting a drug/treatment through clinical trials. It just doesn't sit right with me.

As other posters are saying here, there are lots of cancer charities who will be approached for money all the time from research laboratories. This is how it works, it requires the writing of numerous grant applications and peer reviews before the grants are allocated. They turn down loads of applications because there simply insn't the money. I think your money would be better spent funding one of the cancer charities and letting their expert panels decide where best to invest.

There will probably never be a magic bullet that cures cancer becaues cancer isn't caused by one cause. There are lots of things that can go wrong in the body that can lead to cells growing out of control. So just as there are lots of things that can go wrong, there are lots of approaches that will work to treat one type of cancer, and not another.

Yes as I said poface it has already resulted in a cat vaccine. I was pointing out to those who were wondering why BigPharm are not interested that they are and products using this technology are already avaliable.

I think you're right to a point 2girls, but there is something wrong with the way cancer funding is approached, read Clifton Leaf's article for his take on it, and he has done a huge amount of research on the matter.

yes sorry lonecat just agreeing with you really, just saying it is widely researched. this research has come out of UK [partly funded by CRUK]

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/246619.php

Immunotherapy has the potential to be a 'magic bullet' of sorts one day because it harnesses the efficacy of the body's own immune system. Enabling the body to recognise a specific cancer antigen [and this hopefully will one day be modified so that a vast range of antigens can be recognised so that a wide range of cancers can be targeted even if the cancer keeps evolving] is the key, and many many scientists in the cancer field are in agreement about that.