'Huge' results raise hope for cancer breakthrough

In a potential breakthrough in cancer research, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have genetically engineered patients' T cells — a type of white blood cell — to attack cancer cells in advanced cases of a common type of leukemia.

Two of the three patients who received doses of the designer T cells in a clinical trial have remained cancer-free for more than a year, the researchers said.

Experts not connected with the trial said the feat was important because it suggested that T cells could be tweaked to kill a range of cancers, including ones of the blood, breast and colon.

"This is a huge accomplishment — huge," said Dr. Lee M. Nadler, dean for clinical and translational research at Harvard Medical School, who discovered the molecule on cancer cells that the Pennsylvania team's engineered T cells target.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...5szMCQ&usg=AFQjCNGmSd_uJZy8IJK5DjN8WYBIfnuq1g

This idea wasn't being developed anywhere until a private donor gave this team the money to do the research that led to this new way of treating cancer and it seems to be paying off. What's odd is that no other funding was made available to this team of researchers because those who gave out research money didn't think that this idea was of any value and refused to fund it. Now that it has shown promise money is flowing into this team by the millions and other researchers are now changing their approaches to this way of treating cancers of different types. How can a funding organization know which researchers are going to have the best ideas and give them the money as opposed to those who don't have good ideas? :shrug:

 

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Perhaps I am being cynical, yet I suspect that one is always going to see the money line up where it can turn a profit.

Ideologically, our mission statement is to find a cure for cancer and a host of other diseases. Yet curing disease is not profitable when compared with 'treating' it.

Just contemplate the effect on the economy if all persons were fully educated and able to afford and choose the means to a healthy lifestyle.

Think of how many food commodities and related industries would simply no longer be required. If an educated population could largely prevent illness, there would be little need for the majority of drugs which constitute the majority of today's medical advancement.

Just by making 'healthy choices', we might possibly derail the current economy.

Of course, we should be healthy and energetic enough to find some model to replace it.....

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Another instance of funding going to directed research rather than basic research. While that has a higher probability of success, it is incremental rather than major advancement.

It is a case of being too conservative for our own good when we don't fund this type of thing until it shows results. I.e. profit potential.

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there was already a cure for cancer or something that worked well but you aren't going to hear about it because it's not profitable. that's pretty damn heinous actually.

 

Yeah, sure.

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That's every bit as believable as all those 100 mpg carburetors that have come and gone because the oil companies buried them and killed all the inventors.

Do you have any PROOF of that silly statement or should we just include you in the class of people that believe in stupid conspiracy theories????

 

Well, the way capitalism works is that one group will gladly take a profit even if a lot of other groups lose a ton of money. So, there is actually a very large incentive to develop a breakthrough like this, but it may be met with very harsh scrutiny and criticism from others in the field.

However, I can't imagine anyone sinister enough to hold back a cancer cure.

Thats a good point. However, the economy is largely built on luxuries. Only a minority of people actually need a car, or a big house, a ton of books, 3 TVs, a yard, etc, 6 ipods.. etc US national economists have realized this a long time ago. This is why corn is subsidized - if we spend less money on food we have more money to build a consumerist economy with. If we spend less money on health care we will take our spare money and put it elsewhere.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWX2yMED1YY
http://toxicjunction.com/get.asp?i=V3014
http://www.cancertutor.com/Other/NoCancer13.html

 

Sorry but that's just dumb.Those sites are nothing but propaganda sheets meant for undereducated people who fall for conspiracy theories (like you).

Also, they are used to spook people (again. like you) that have NO idea what it costs to develop ANY new drug, get it approved and on the market.

Dummies seem to enjoy being dummies. :shrug:

 

evidently, the dummy is you because you missed the main point. look up the drug.

 

I don't know, the first report was quite legit - it was a regular news source. The second guy was a little too fanatical though.




I know developing drugs is really expensive, I took a biotechnology course and I know it takes a long time and is very expensive (hundreds of millions).

But, if the stuff works, why don't people just buy it and self-medicate? It says there are no side effects.

Admittedly, developing it may involve finding various closely related substances which would be more effective.

Still, there are lots of promising cancer drugs out there. I am not an expert on this by any means but I've seen several drugs which seem amazing in the first stages of testing - only to be discarded during later stages.

IRT
boosting the body's own immune system to fight diseases is becoming a hot topic in medicine. The human immune system is an incredible machine and is a lot more advanced than any drugs that we have. It can adapt to new threats and it is very efficient at fighting disease. Admittedly, it can itself be a symptom of disease- fever, swelling, and aches are all products of our own immune system.

 

Nope, because I'm well aware of what is involved in getting a drug to market. On the other hand, people who think like you do are just like those who would look at a classical piece of music and say, "What's the big deal - it's just a series of musical notes."

Well both fine music and drugs are very similar in some ways. Even though you might consider a drug to be nothing more than a chemical compound, TONS of money and thousands of man-hours were spent just finding and developing the compound.

And that is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg!!! After that comes the first animal trials - generally rats. Then comes the next set of trials, usually with puppies and/or simians. Next comes the first set of trials with humans - and is always a small number of people. Then a larger trial involving a larger number of people. And finally a clinical trial double-blind test that employs a LARGE number of people that are divided into three groups: One group gets a sugar pill. the second gets a drug from a competitor that treats the same medical problem and the last group is given our new drug. And here's the real kicker to all that - at ANY point along that expensive path the drug may fail and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars will wind up having been wasted. And if it does fail, it's almost always at that final stage which is where the pharma company takes the biggest loss of all.

And you're probably unaware that the VAST majority of new drugs fail the tests completely.

But now let's continue the story...

Let's now assume we've finally got a drug that made it through all the stages. Now we have to compile a massive amount of data and submit it to the FDA for approval. Then we go through several rounds of the FDA asking for more TONS of additional data and information. And now it's been over 4 years since we first developed that drug, have hundreds of millions invested in it AND have 5 times that amount that we've spent on 50 other drugs during that time that failed while being tested - and we, the drug company, have not made ONE SINGLE NICKEL yet to pay for all that - much less any profit!!!!!

And here's another VERY important point that I would bet you are also totally unaware of. Even though a drug patent is good for 20 years, a company MUST file a patent application well before even starting clinical trials on order to protect their discovery (even if it turn out to be useless).

What that means is that the company may have only 8 - 10 years in which to recover everything they've invested in the good drug and the ones that didn't make it market. Remember, we're talking BILLIONS of dollars by now - and that's exactly why they have to charge so much for that one drug.

(Yeah, I know, you'll probably just shrug all this off. Because that's what foolish, uneducated people do when presented with solid facts that don't match with their foolish beliefs like those found on crank websites.)