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."
I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Telomerase not only in cancer cells... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
In normal human cells... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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: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 used, the car is useless. The telomere fix would be like having an inexhaustable supply of tires - but about the time you've used the 10 sets of tires, the car is falling apart anyhow.
* The argument goes that if you spend all that energy on error checking, you have less to spend on reproduction. Sure, you potentially get to reproduce for much longer, but for most of our evolutionary history, it was seldom age that killed our ancestors.
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 telomerase is needed is in the germ line cells, which is why this treatment may have the side effect of infertility.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't infertility a side effect of the current treatments such as chemo anyway?
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.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:3, Interesting)
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: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 the current crop are businessmen?).
Any research that is not expected to bear fruit within a very few years is less likely to get funding, even if the long-term rewards that might be forthcoming from that research are great.
Nod to Godwin's Law: Hitler made two large mistakes concerning scientific research. He banned any research into defensive weapons (on the theory that his uber-soldiers would never be on the defensive), and he banned any weapons research that was expected to take more than two years to deliver a weapon (probably on the theory that he would control the world in less than two years). American research is falling into this second trap.
Re:Fertility is a big problem (Score:2, Interesting)
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 and the press, effectively being one of the pillars of their funding.
As a result, the media was very slanted towards the ruling party, and even failed to report news unfavorable to the presidents image.
A couple years ago, the government stopped wasting money on senseless ads, and as a result, the press now is free, they report corruption issues in state organizations, they are very sharp in interviews, as they were never allowed to, at least in big media.
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.