Gene Therapy Ages Human Cancer Cells in Lab 318
mattr writes "Korean scientists are the first in the world to selectively age off and kill human cancer cells, by injecting a gene that suppresses telomerase, a cancer-specific enzyme that normally makes cancer cells immortal by protecting the telomere tips of their chromosomes. The telomere length modulation mechanism was found by two scientists from Yonsei University and colleagues at U. Central Florida, and is reported in the April 1 issue of Genes and Development magazine."
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
SB
Cool.. but some questions. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fertility is a big problem (Score:5, Interesting)
This mechanism has been studied for a very long time, but this must be the first time that researchers have been successful in manufacturing the vectors.
Of course, there are still promising treatments such as angiogenesis inhibitors which has the benefit of not losing fertility.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were given the choice between being alive but infertile or being dead, which one would you choose?
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2)
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2)
Anyway, this is cancer we're talking about here. It's so prevalent amongst even vaguely complex creatures that you might as well label it a side-effect of being alive. A dreadful and debilitating one, but at present, simply a risk of being alive.
Any steps towards highly effective treatment of cancers ars fantastic news.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't infertility a side effect of the current treatments such as chemo anyway?
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:5, Informative)
Using a virus to infect cells wouldn't work because any further doses of the virus would be less effective due to immune responses. Even when just using liposomes (spherical containers made up of phospholipids) carrying the antitelomerase gene to transfect the cancer cells, the efficiency would only be about 50% max. This means that only 50% of the cells would get the gene, while the remaining will still be untreated. In this situation, the transfected cells will die off due to the effect of this new anti-telomerase gene, but the untransfected ones will have a selective advantage and take over, making the tumor continue to grow.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2)
However IANAB[iologist].
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2)
A pretty large part of the people getting cancer are past their having-children age anyways, or they already have all the children they want, or they don't actually want any children.
Even if all these fail, so that the infertility is indeed a drawback, I'm sure most people would still choose alive but infertile over dead.
Re:Cool.. but some questions. (Score:3, Informative)
the
wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
Stem cells being affected is even worse (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cool.. but some questions. (Score:2)
Re:Cool.. but some questions. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Screw that... (Score:2)
Lets do it to livestock instead. Grow em till it's almost time to slaughter, then transform em into cancer-cows and watch em balloon. Monitor em, then slaughter em just before the deformation kills them and grind them into burger.
I betcha Macdonalds would go for it.
I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Funny)
And let's just say it goes downhill from there.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
This happens anyway. Haven't you heard of adult diapers?
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
The real trick would be to figure out how to hold the human body at the point of equilibrium for 18 to 21 years of age.
Never mind that. Then we couldn't legally get beer. 8-)
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Didn't make me feel particularly comfortable...
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but immortality is a feature of cancerous cells. That might be a Bad Idea.
Only one feature... (Score:2)
It's only one feature of cancerous cells. Another important factor is de-regulation of the cell-cycle by degradation of critical proteins such as p53. If cells can somehow be treated for the other factors involved in cells becoming cancerous, it might be possible that expressing telomerase in all cells could eliminate the aging process. But doing so is extremely difficult and is beyond us. If we could, we would have figured out how to stop another mechanism
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)
Koreans (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, this is very interesting. When telomeres started getting press a few years back, it was really obvious that this would eventually be the key to managing cancer. (And if Alex Chiu gets his way, the key to immortality).
If cells age because child cells of a mitosified cell contain fewer telomeres, then something that prevented that telomeric loss would lead to an eternal lifetime for splitting cells.
What has interested me about this is that babies are born with a full set of telomeres. This means that the telomeric levels of the parent (mother) is not passed to the child. All other cells in a person's body are dependent on the number of telomeres present in those first few cells clumped together in the womb.
By blocking fetal tissue research, the harvesting of these precious cells is hampered. The reasons for fetal research are many, and the study of telomeres is one big area that simply can't be replicated with non-fetal stem cells.
Re:Koreans (Score:2)
You can already be immortal if you buy the magnets. It's the damn democrats and their public schools and culture of death that's brainwashing you into thinking they don't work.
Re:Koreans (Score:2)
IIRC, only human fetal research is banned. Unless humans are somehow unique, I'd bet that most mammalian life on the planet goes through the same process we do (afterall, we all look like the same little mouse at one stage, then we look like monkeys with tails, and then our tails just stop growing). Yes, eventually study on humans may be necessary for the last puzzle piece, but odds are we can put most of the puzzle together with mice, rats, dogs, cats, pigs, cows, horses,
De-Evolution, man! (Score:2)
"They tell us that, we lost our tails, evolving up, from little snails..."
(Note to self: Don't post while drinking...)
Re:De-Evolution, man! (Score:2)
Re:Koreans (Score:3, Interesting)
If this happened in the former USSR, that would be true, because there was no other way to get funded.
In the end, this could be good, because lack of government funding could even be an incentive to privately funded research. That way, some research could be guided by private interests, effectively taking away that "banning" power from the government.
In my country (Uruguay) something very loosely related, but illustrative, happened. The government used to spend lots of money on air TV a
Conspiracy Theory of mine (Score:2)
Re:Koreans (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Koreans (Score:5, Informative)
So you don't lose federal funding for a specific project but for everything. With very few exceptions almost any university, research institute etc. gets federal funding for something (could be the sports program, cleaning the toilets, other research projects...) so effectively it's a ban.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (and you have proof =)
Re:Koreans (Score:4, Informative)
That is not to say that turning on telomerase in healthy cells is a bad thing -- as long as you have a way to turn it off in cancerous cells. If one could do that, then yes, the normal cells could be for all intents and purposes considered immortal.
Telomerase not only in cancer cells... (Score:4, Interesting)
Go Knights! (Score:4, Funny)
In normal human cells... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In normal human cells... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In normal human cells... (Score:2)
Well, if so, they probably died from cosmic radiation.
<movie type="B">
Or mayme they mutated into something which grows into a monster which eventually comes back to destroy the earth
</movie>
Re:In normal human cells... (Score:2)
with the cancer is in his 50's, the cancer might not die for several decades.
Because the cancer cells divide rapidly, they will die off a lot quicker than normal human cells will.
What we really need is a way to modulate telomerase. That is, turn it on in all cells long enough to restore the telomeres and then turn it back off to minimize cancer risks. I'm sure there are many risks from such a procedure, but it would also potentially double the lifespan with a single treatment. The the same treatment c
Re:In normal human cells... (Score:2, Informative)
Not entirely true as, "Telomerase is present in most fetal tissues, normal adult male germ cells, inflammatory cells, in proliferative cells of renewal tissues, and in most tumor cells." [springer.de]. This begs the question how you destroy cancerous cells without destroying normal cells that require the telomerase enzyme.
I haven't yet accessed the full text article, but the poster mentioned that the scientists in question are sel
need more grant money (Score:2, Insightful)
Obvious question (Score:5, Insightful)
No! (Score:2)
I can just see it - carpool lanes full of 200 year old driver's - heads barely poking up above the steering wheel of her 2124 Buicks, on the way to bingo parlours, with the numbers drawn announced by actual Dick Clark(tm) clones.
Re:Obvious question (Score:2, Informative)
In order for a cell to become cancerous, there essentially needs to be two mutations to occur. One mutation that allows for immortality (e.g. telomerase), and one to DISregulate growth. If a cell is no longer properly inhibited (loss of a tumor repressor gene) or abnormally activated (activation of an oncogenic gene), the cell can start deviding out of co
Re:Obvious question (Score:3, Informative)
The latest laboratory research into enabling telomerase in normal human cells indicates that it does not result in cancer even after the cells have lived 50% longer or more than they would have otherwise.
Re:Obvious question (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, to some degree, Geron Corporation [geron.com] has.
Re:Obvious question (Score:3, Interesting)
One theory is that it is just too metabolically expensive to run a really good error checking system on non-germ-line cells.* As our cells divide, errors accumulate, more of them operate with reduced efficiency or not at all, and we see the result as aging. Fixing up the telomeres wouldn't help this.
An analogy: Imagine when you buy a new car, you get 10 sets of extra tires. You can use those tires on your car, but not get any more. Once the 10th set is u
Re:Obvious question (Score:2, Insightful)
I once read a suggestion that if everyone waited to reproduce at age 40, without medical intervention, then after 3 or so generations humans would live a lot longer. Only those who managed to survive that long, and only women whose eggs managed to fight off the ravages of 40 years of life, would pass on their genes. O
you are right, but have the wrong example/reason (Score:2)
the ability to make money is a survival ability, as it allows you to support a family and so on- through multiple generations if you are a rockafeller or a hilton...
Where evolution has halted for h.sap is that we medically cure/treat many conditions that would have died out but for modern medication..
postapocolyptic war, the same skillset that enables a weak business man to amass a personal fortune can also allow
2nd grade anwser (Score:2)
new todo list (Score:5, Funny)
2) Use the cell phone handset a lot more
3) picnic under high tension wires often
4) cheap cigarettes from Canada
5) Use more liquids ending in -ene, -ide
6) Have more food colouring parties
7) Break out that Roentgen tube lying in the attic, make some cool photos.
8) Work with small fibres and dusts as often as possible.
Yep, now I can really break loose...
Hedley
Re:new todo list (Score:2)
Re:Got a sweet tooth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Got a sweet tooth? (Score:2)
A concern of mine, as a member of my immediate family has Type II. Regardless, not passing out from elevated blood sugar levels (100% chance) certainly beats a chance at palsy and forgetfulness.
And of course, now we are the test subjects of a new version, sucralose! Which may or may not be any better; only
Perhaps that's true... (Score:2)
selectively? (Score:3, Interesting)
afaik, telomerase breaks down telomeres, no matter what kind of cell you have. most cancer cells inhibit telomerase to allow survival, so you'd have to inhibit the telomerase inhibitor.
You've got it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
That's upside-down. Telomeres automatically shorten themselves with every cell division. Cells with very short telomeres die. This acts to limit cell divison, and probably exists (among other reasons) to limit runaway growth like cancer. Telomerase is not involved in this process at all, and in fact is not present in most normal cells.
Telomerase acts to lengthen telomeres so that the cells in question can keep dividing. Telomerase exists likely so that cell which do need to divide forever (like germ cells and bone marrow cells) can overcome the telomere limit imposed on the rest of the body.
afaik, telomerase breaks down telomeres, no matter what kind of cell you have.
Again, that's backwards. Most cancer cells express telomerase where the normal cell wouldn't. This lengthens the telomeres and allows cell division to continue.
Thus, inhibiting telomerase will re-impose the division limit on cancer cells, suppressing tumor growth. That's what this study claims to do.
Summary:
Telomere: passive cancer suppressor/division limiter present in every cell.
Telomerase: enzyme to allow a few special-case cells to keep dividing despite telomeres.
Cancer: often turns on telomerase in cell types where it should be dormant.
Re:You've got it backwards (Score:4, Informative)
most cancer cells inhibit telomerase to allow survival, so you'd have to inhibit the telomerase inhibitor.
Re:You've got it backwards (Score:2)
Killing cancer is the easy part. (Score:5, Interesting)
Gene therapy using viruses has failed because the body attacks the modified virus . Some people have died because of this and research was stopped.
There are some new ideas on using HIV virus which is harder for the immune system to attack.
Re:Killing cancer is the easy part. (Score:2)
bbc story [bbc.co.uk]
Link2 [i-sis.org.uk]
Toxic shock [i-sis.org.uk]
Amazing... (Score:2, Funny)
I just hope it's not some cruel April Fools joke...
Geron Turns Telomerase on/off like light switch (Score:2, Interesting)
my cousin (Score:5, Interesting)
At times like this it is hard not to get mad at the medical profession. On the other hand I have a great appreciation for what medicine has done for my family.
The cousin I mentioned got an extra year of life because of an experimental stem cell (no not the kind thats been in the news) transplant.
My father has had open heart surgery twice. He is 64 years old and still goes backpacking with my brother and I.
My mom, although a survivor has had cancer 3 seperate times: breast cancer in each breast and a melanoma in her eye.
It is from the latter that I gained a great respect for medical research, and it is why I smile reading a story like this article.
when she had her eye cancer there was a new experimental treatment at the UW hospital here in seattle. They cut her eye open and sewed a patch of radioactive material over the tumor. They then sewed the eye shut and sent her home for several days with a lead shield over her eye.
Then they took her back to the hospital and cut the eye open again and removed the patch. Over the course of the next year the tumor died back (we know because of the ultrasound and other tests they do on her). Now she has finally lost the last of the usefull sight in that eye. The sight-loss is due to the close proximity of the radiation treatment to the optic nerve.
The only other treatment at the time was to remove the eye completely. With the radiation treatment she got many years of good sight out of that eye she wouldn't have had.
It is funny to me that at the time that treatment seemed so high tech. now it just sounds barbaric. cutting the eye open twice... so invasive. Now this article highlights something that may, in our lifetime be the new exciting experimental cancer treatment, and our kids (if they can still afford health care) will wonder how we endured such brutal treatment (I would suspect no cancer treatment in our lifetime will be FUN anyway)
I guess my cousin's situation has me in an extra thoughtful mood tonight.
Re:my cousin (Score:2, Interesting)
Look at how many people survive cancer today, though. It may be that in our lifetime, only the most advanced cases will require more than a few visits to the doctors office.
Re:denied (Score:2, Insightful)
Donate to Cancer Research! (Score:2)
People need your help. Here's a link to donate [kintera.org] in honor of a friend who's affected. The Cancer Walk at Tufts University is a major fundraiser for Cancer Research.
Hope this gets modded up.
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
The summary leaves out one crucial detail... (Score:3, Interesting)
This experiment was conducted in a petri dish.
Killing cancer cells in a petri dish is one thing, locating them, isolating them and killing them in the human body is another.
Sick call of the future (Score:2)
Cure for two ailments? (Score:2)
On the other hand, might this some day offer humans immortality, by using the telomere length modulation mechanism on normal cells? I will be the first to admit I am not educated in this subject, even a little, so is this way off base?
Wow...predicted in scifi 7 years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally Alfred Bester alluded to this in The Computer Connection (1975!) where he referred to the fact that the immortals in his story were living just short of runaway cancer...sort of the theory "the cure for cancer is old age."
Interesting how life imitates art.
Not first by a long shot (Score:3, Informative)
A highly selective telomerase inhibitor limiting human cancer cell proliferation [nature.com]
As an aside, would you rather take a pill or inefficient, potentially mutagenic gene therapy?
I know what I'd choose...
Re:who gets credit (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:who gets credit (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here.
Who would pay money for a slashdot id? (Score:2)
Why the hell would anyone want to buy a low number user ID?
Re:Who would pay money for a slashdot id? (Score:3, Informative)
To impress who? Nobody is getting laid by showing a chick their slashdot id number.
Re:Who would pay money for a slashdot id? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:who gets credit (Score:3, Funny)
Re:who gets credit (Score:4, Insightful)
so long as we remember and make sure to cite and post what we remember and write articles for wikipedia on what we remember then such things will not be forgotten or overlooked.
these days "they" are less and less often the media and the journals.
"They" is becomming "us", and I love it.
Re:who gets credit (Score:2, Funny)
Re:who gets credit (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that the Korean scientists will keep their credit, just like the Koreans scientists who recently successfully generated stem cells from somatic adult tissues, just like the Dutchman who came up with the microscope, just like the Moravian monk who counted peas, just like the Swede Botanist retained credit for the Linnaean classification, just like the Russian Chemist retained credit for the periodic table, just like 10th century Arabs retained credit for much of Algebra, just like citizens of Greek city-states retain credit for beginning to formalize reason.
The capacity for human genius is universal, and in the reality based community known as science, we appreciate that. It belittles the intellects of foreign researchers and the hard work of American scientists to say otherwise.
Re:who gets credit (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't that research is less of a priority in America than it used to be. Research is being funded from companies and government agencies that have fallen prey to the same thinking that caused/exacerbated the Enron-ish scandals: Only short-term rewards are important. This thinking also seems to be showing-up in our government officials (perhaps because th
Re:who gets credit (Score:3, Funny)
I agree. As an American, I think it is pragmatic to think it will take at least 5 years to take over the world. I put forward that we should all sign an online petition to congress to get them to fund weapons that will put out in at least 5 years, instead of the current two
Not always.... (Score:2)
America no doubt spends a lot, if not the most, on medical research. Though, that is mostly because of the cancer, AIDS, diabetes and multiple sclerosis foundations, not to mention ALS, Autism, and so forth. However we aren't getting into stem cell (as an example) research as heavy as other countries because of a few Draconian measures and a Draculean* view of science (* Dra-cul-ean: of or relat
Re:Not always.... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure it would be true to say that other countries took the revolution and made the most of it, the revolution itself, and the start of such industrial manufacturing of dies(leading onto other related areas) started in the house of William Perkins, in London England.
William Perkins [wikipedia.org]
Also a good read:
Mauve [amazon.com]
Re:Not always.... (Score:2)
Re:Not always.... (Score:2)
Interestingly, the most famous drug associated with a German pharmaceutical company is Heroin. While it was marketed and manufactured by Bayer, it was invented by some brit.
then go home (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, go home to your own country and publish there. I am not saying this to be rude, and I know it sounds very politically incorrect.
Here is the deal. The USA has a ton of money. They try and steal as much talent from foriegn countries as they can. Two things happen because of this. First, the USA benifits from the brains it gets. It is just like 100 years ago with natural resources from th
Re:who gets credit (Score:5, Funny)
Aide: Sir, have you looked at the bill on genetic research?
Shrub: Yes, and I vetoed it.
Aide: Um, why sir? It would have cured cancer?
Shrub: It said a side-effect of the research might be immorality, and I won't STAND for that!
Aide: (slaps forehead) No sir, it didn't say immorality, it said immortality.
Shrub: (looks confused)
Re:who gets credit (Score:2, Informative)
Sometimes the professor acts more like a manager is just concerned w/ the progress of the schedule or research than the actual research...
Re:who gets credit (Score:2)
Re:But America leads the world in science (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lot's of problems with the "therapy" (Score:2, Interesting)
telomerase is switched off in normal somatic cells. however, in cancer cells it is switched on (cancer cells are essentially immortal). the only place where telomeras