Cure for cancer - Turning immune system against genetically modified cancer cells

"Results from a long-term clinical trial conducted by cancer researchers at Houston Methodist Hospital show that combining radiation treatment with "suicide gene therapy," a technique in which prostate cancer cells are genetically modified so they signal a patient's immune system to attack them, provides a safe and effective one-two punch against the disease."
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-suicide-gene-therapy-prostate-tumor.html

Researchers used an adenovirus, similar to the one that causes the common cold, to carry the therapy agent, a herpes virus gene that produces the enzyme thymidine kinase directly into the tumor cells. Once the herpes virus gene was delivered and it started manufacturing thymidine kinase, patients were given a commonly used anti-herpes drug, valacyclovir. The combination attacked the herpes DNA, and the tumor cells producing thymidine kinase self-destructed, which is why the procedure is called 'suicide gene therapy.
Once the activated valacyclovir starts destroying tumor cells, it also alerts the patient's immune system, previously unaware of the cancer's presence, that it is time to launch a massive attack.
Results are more than satisfying.

This sounds really cool and promising. I hope immunotherapy may be the key in curing at least some forms of cancer.

 

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Someone I know went through an episode with cancer. Part of her treatment were two shots to boost her immune system. The price was ten thousand dollars each. I think medical advances are great, but I also wonder whether people will be able to afford the miracle when it arrives.

 

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I found this today: Immunotherapy drug is more effective than chemotherapy in most patients with lung cancer: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151219144929.htm

 

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Chemotherapy is just poison and the hope that the poison kills the cancer cells faster than the rest of the body. So almost everything that is a more specific attack to cancer cells will outperform chemotherapy.

I too, have much hope to immunotherapy to become key to cancer treatment. The ability to mark cells and make the immune system target and destroy these cells allows for very focused attacks onto any bad cell type - given, that the marking process really marks the right cells.

The problem so far was, that cancer cells are offspring of normal body cells and therefore the immune system often does not recognize them as a problem. At least in the early stages they have the "friend" response to the "friend or foe" challenge of the immune system (as all the other body cells have, too).

 

Researcher successfully use the immune system against cancer again. They managed to kill drug-resistant lung cancer by packaging cancer drug paclitaxel in containers derived from a patient's own immune system (so called immune bubbles), protecting the drug from being destroyed by the body's own defenses and bringing the entire payload to the tumor. They did this by using 50 times less chemo.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160114113632.htm

 

Cool stuff. The anti-cell torpedo has come tue

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A cure for cancer is not possible. The cancer process is an integral part of every cell, although normally turned off. At any given time everyone will have some cells turn cancerous, but our immune system isolates and removes them - this is normal. The key here is that our immune system can only effectively handle a few isolated cells. Today these few cells can multiply faster than our systems can cope and hence we see the epidemic become real. In the earlier stages of evolution simple living organisms grew through unregulated cell replication, i.e. through the primeval cancer process that we still possess. As more complex organisms developed and cells became specific the cancer process was turned off, although even today the early stages of a human fetus grows via the cancer-like process.

But a cure for cancer is not needed once it is made clear why cancer has suddenly reached epidemic proportions over this past 40 years. We have known this issue as early as the 1920s. Cancer cells require energy but because they have damaged the energy producing mitochondria they have to resort to the early primeval method for cell energy - glucose fermentation. With healthy mitochondria we can metabolize fats or glucose very efficiently, but when those routes are made ineffective glucose fermentation become active, although it is not very efficient. To increase the intake of glucose a cancer cell will cause additional insulin receptors to the cell surface to satisfy the cancer's ravenous appetite for glucose.

So why the current epidemic? The rise in cancer over the past 40 years mirrors the rise in diabetes and obesity - these are all metabolic disorders. Some 40 years ago the USA introduced dietary guidelines that dubbed fats as evil and to be avoided. Fat phobia began and people listened. As fats were reduced they were replaced by carbohydrates - i.e. glucose. It was inevitable that a massive increase in glucose intake would result in exactly what cancer cells need to grow uncontrollably.

The solution - stop the fear of fats and return to the full fat diets we had in the earlier part of the 20th century - and at the same time dramatically reduce our intake of sugar laden foods. If we were to return to using fat for more of our energy instead of glucose we will see a swift reduction in cancers. Nothing more complex is needed.

 

This sounds like total nonsense to me. Do you have any reputable references to support the remarkable claim you make that cancer - in general - is related to sugar intake?

 

Try, as a start - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3941741/

Cancer as a metabolic disease is not new. A battle between cancer "experts" is currently ongoing between those who believe we need to isolate the millions of different ways genetic mutations cause cancer and offer drugs for each (the current dogma - cancer as a genetic disease), and those who look at the common cause as a metabolic disorder.

Also try http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/719423

And - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002944013006536

And - http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/what-causes-cancer/

And a great lecture on this topic -

There are books on Amazon etc.

I can google many references more but anyone here can do that for themselves if they wish.

 

Interesting, but this guy has no training in medicine, let alone oncology. He's a prof of biology, that's all.

Furthermore, he has associated himself with known quacks and promotes his ideas way beyond what is clinically justified. Read all about it here: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ketogenic-diets-for-cancer-hype-versus-science/

This is highly dangerous. People may resort to dietary treatments - in place of proven therapies - even though no clinical trials have been done on these dietary ideas. This could shorten their lives drastically and cause unnecessary deaths of those who might have otherwise been cured.

Furthermore I did not see in the material you provided any support for the idea that sugar causes cancer, merely that many types of cancer use glycolysis in their respiration and thus consume a lot of glucose. That, of course, is not the same thing at all.

 

I suspect that for prostate cancer, at least, it is because men are living longer -reach the age where it is common. - If male and more than 75 years old, you probably (approaching 100% chance) have prostate cancer, but it may be slow growing and not even detected, so you can die of something else if it is.

 

Yes, that I think is almost certainly the explanation for most cancers. I am unaware of any evidence that cancers are really increasing in the population corrected for age. A greater life expectancy is bound to lead to a higher proportion of deaths from cancer.