Researchers Find Potential Cure for Cancer 324
MECC writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University may have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. The group is taking the step of patenting the idea, as this new approach using sugars may hold real potential for the fight against cancer. This is not the first approach to use sugars, the article states, but is (by the researchers' estimation) the most successful. From the article: 'Sampathkumar and his colleagues built upon 20-year-old findings that a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate can slow the spread of cancer cells. In the 1980s, researchers discovered that butyrate, which is formed naturally at high levels in the digestive system by symbiotic bacteria that feed on fibre, can restore healthy cell functioning ... The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate. The hybrid easily penetrates a cell's surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell. Once inside the cell, ManNAc is processed into another sugar known as sialic acid that plays key roles in cancer biology, while butyrate orchestrates the expression of genes responsible for halting the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells.'"
Drama, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be so cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
Patent ? Idea ? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The group is taking the step of patenting the idea"
Patenting
What the hell
I hate to say this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because the money isn't in the cure. The money is in the treatment.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Malignant Property (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic contained in that "as" apparently dictates that curing cancer is more important for making money than for everyone's health. Apparently without any explanation needed, or question expected. Also unquestioned is the vast amount of money spent by the public (you and your family, for generations) subsidizing all the research these "inventors" used to produce their new idea.
There's a lot of discussion on Slashdot of justifications for piracy of media content. Fighting the arbitrary assignment of all value from medical inventions to the last people to use their predecessors to cross a commercial threshold seems not only more obviously moral, but more relevant to basic survival. And a stronger study in the arbitrary contrasts between the "robber" and the "robbed".
Re:FP? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am MUCH more trusting of these university research guys than some corporate pharm lab research guys as far as doing the right thing with the patent. Hopefully it won't be misplaced, but lets not jump to conclusions.
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:1, Insightful)
You can't steal an idea.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
It couldn't have anything to do with cancer being difficult to successfully treat, could it? Or that most of the really nasty cancers (lung, pancreatic, bowel) are detected pretty late in the game, huh?
Naw, must be greed.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Grow up. The company that comes up with a truly effective, broadly acting cure for cancer is going to make more money than God, even if they provide it at a low cost. And because every company hopes to be first, everybody has an incentive to throw a hat in the ring. And of course, once you make that huge investment, even if you can't be first, you still go to market, meaning that there's at least some competition to bring prices down.
Pharmaeceutical companies do plenty of seriously messed up stuff in order to make money, but disease profiteering isn't one of them. If there was the slightest shred of proof to show that they're purposefully avoiding developing a cure so they can instead sell palliatives, don't you think patients advocate groups would be screaming for blood from the rooftops?
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:1, Insightful)
I fucking hate the perspective of you non accomplishment types.
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patenting (Score:2, Insightful)
Why can't they do both? Seriously do you think the scientists have stopped working and are now spending every second they have filing the patents or are lawyers hired to do this?
Also what is wrong with people benefiting from their potentially groundbreaking work?
Oh, I forgot, on communist slashdot people should work 168 hours a week for free, live in a van down by the river and starve to death before taking any money for their work.
Except for you, and the rest of the slashdot crowd who deserve far more money for their skills and hard work, but everyone else should not benefit at all, that is tantamount to stealing from humanity!
Re:FP? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:3, Insightful)
In theory, they could use this basic patent to prevent pharma from harvesting cash in the future. But they won't. This is academia, where the system cannot function without large cash flows. Do you really think that university presidents with solid six-figure salaries, thousand square foot office suites, and stone-clad buildings can be supported by tuition alone?
Much ado about...not much (Score:5, Insightful)
Relevant information: not yet tested on whole living systems. They pissed off some cancer cells in a Petri dish. Big deal. You know what kills cancer cells in Petri dishes? A sledgehammer. Cyanide. Dynamite. Driving over the Petri dish with a Buick. None of these therapies are likely to be useful, however.
Wait, you cry. Laetrile released cyanide in vivo, and that was an (alleged) therapy.
Yeah, systemic poison-giving is already at hand. It is called chemotherapy, and it sucks. It can work, but it is never pretty.
Infusing the patient with sialic acid, which will enevitably infiltrate by this method into every cell, cancerous or not, is twiddling with every biological pathway with which sialic acid interacts. Butyric acid (the essence of sour butter)? Rub it on. Hasn't harmed anyone yet - whats the LD50 for old butter?
Maybe there is promise here, and maybe there is just breathless scientific prose in a self-serving PR release.
My guess is that once whole animals come into the picture, these researchers, as many many before, will find out that biochemistry farts in your Petri dish's general direction.
Again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Go find some interview with a journalist who had been or still is fighting with this illness. They all say they've become more cautions when choosing such news for headlines in their newspapers or tv news.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone who is whining FUD about there being a money grubbing axis of evil, clearly doesn't work in the real world. Having been completely federal grant funded for 2 years at a university, I can tell you, the lights don't stay on by themselves, the phone bills don't get paid, failed trials still cost the same as succesful ones... Even "non-profit" organizations can't lose money continously (and grants are being slashed every day), especially when conducting trials which can take years to conduct and hundreds of millions to complete. I'm not saying big-pharma is the least bit altruistic (and yes, they would sell their grandmother in a heartbeat) but since we don't live in the era of star-trek-the-next-generation where poverty has apparently been eliminated, and work and funding is apparently universal, one must make money to stay in business.
There is not a conspiracy for chemotherapeutic drugs to hold-down cures (as those would be the "new" drugs for sale by big pharma if they became useful therapies), but a conspiracy by cancer cells to continue living despite our best efforts. I have heard the same FUD about big-pharma sitting on miracle antibiotics, but in truth those would be huge sellers, it's just that bacteria have gotten very good at living over the last several billion years.
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:2, Insightful)
3. So that Magacorp has the incentive to license the invention from the University so that it has a chance of actually reaching patients.
Drug Development is an expensive business. Unless there is a financial incentive (which at best is the possibility of future profits, there are no guarantees), it is very unlikely that the required funding will be made available to conduct the expensive clinical trials required for FDA approval.
High fibre diet is the answer? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the claims are true, the vegetarians and those ethnic groups that have lots of fiber in their diet should have lower cancer rates. Some epidemiological (sp?) study should be able to figure out the patterns. Should study groups with highly off the norm dietary habits. Results would be intersting.
insert your favourite big agro conspiracy theory that has depressed the natural and less refined food consumption in America
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your comparison is obviously invalid.
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. Trust me when I tell you that they are about money first, second, and third.
Oh, give me a fucking break! Let me just list three reasons why your point is completely stupid:
no such thing as "cancer" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
My mother died last year from cancer. The type of cancer she had is not very frequent so there's not much money to make. The chemo-therapie and other therapy forms were not specifically developed for this type and do not work very effective and so she died.
I also travel frequently to developing countries and people I have known there died from malaria, no vaccination or anything because the people mostly affected are poor. And so there is not much research.
No, sir, no "anti-corporation blabber". It's just a plain fact that corporations (and by that patents) will help you only if there is enough money to be made. That is no blabber but pure clean capitalistic economy.
It is nothing else. It doesn't matter how many people are affected (malaria and AIDS) or how severe the problem is (cancer vs obesity), it's just about profit. So do not start with family member or the children examples. Business means revenue over humans.
Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Patent ? Idea ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FP? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying I have an answer. But since - as far as I am concerned - medicine is about the well-being of people and business is about profit, they are not a match made in heaven.
But we have that combination and now we have to see how we get along with that, "family member" and "the children" examples don't help much.
I could make up a one like: "Imagine you are poor and one of your family members has XY and medical care would be a human right and free." It doesn't help with concrete problems either.
cheers
Re:I hate to say this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only on teh InArw3b could this be modded "insightful".
Let's see, there's a really complicated, deadly family of diseases.
Why haven't we cured them? 2 possibilities:
1) it's really hard, and we haven't figured it out yet
2) a secret cabal of giant corporations is colluding to make sure nobody releases it so they can make more money.
Obviously, 2 is the logical answer, right?
I'm sure the recipe for the cure is on a 3x5 card stored right next to the Ark of the Covenant in that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones. I believe Elvis is the warehouse guard, too.
Here we go again. (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea in the article sounds interesting, but it is clearly being framed in a way to provoke an audience to become outraged at the idea of "patenting the cure for cancer."
Shirley there are researchers here on slashdot who have worked in cancer, who are rolling their eyes about now, in fact, I have an extended family member who is a PI on a long standing cancer research project and I can't wait to hear their take. I suspect this is old news among people in the cancer research community, but I'll have to wait for the school year to start before I can ask. I won't even forward an article with the title "Cancer Cure Patented", come on!
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of patents is not to make companies money, as you seem to imagine, it is to make sure that companies share their secrets. The alternative to patents is not wild free information, it is corporations taking secrecy to whole new levels, and never sharing ANY of their findings, to keep their competitive edge.
What if they did cure cancer? (Score:3, Insightful)
How would that effect our attitude towards things that cause cancer or are seen as highly carcinogenic? Would smoking become the equivilent of poor oral hygiene (probably not considering the other problems)?
It's often interesting to wonder how or if our priorities or attitudes would change if suddenly what was a major problem for decades becomes considered an easily curable condition.
Re:Don't be so cynical (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Patent ? Idea ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The drugs cost very little to produce, you're paying for all the research and profits.