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Biotech Science

Breeding Cancer-Proof Mice 43

Posted by timothy from the still-not-drop-proof-though dept.
Bob Vila's Hammer writes "In an article at New Scientist, research scientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina have been able to breed a cancer-proof mouse. The lucky new finds, some 700 cancer-proof mice, have the ability to destroy numerous different kinds of cancer cells in their bodies very efficiently without the use of T-cells (white blood cells). Instead the body's innate immune system attacks the tumor cells and ruptures them with neutrophils and macrophages. What is so astounding within early findings is that the power of these mice to resist cancer seems to be unlimited and as well, a genetic trait able to be passed down to further generations without the negative results of previous mouse breeds with autoimmune diseases."
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Breeding Cancer-Proof Mice More

Breeding Cancer-Proof Mice

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  • This is great, but I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @07:06PM (#5830343) Homepage
    It's awesome that we can do this, and the implications are incredible if we can apply them to humans, but I wonder if we are going to build a breed of super cancer proof humans and then find out that there is actually a reason why we produce cancers., "Oh, I get it, so THAT what cancer was for..."
    • Cancer has been around in the human population also. One would imagine that we would have evolved to be resistant also like these mice if it was easy and stable to do so. It may not be "Oh, cancer is good" but rather, "Defending against cancer is bad." Who knows if these mice are normal otherwise? Maybe for every cancer cell that gets killed, a brain cell goes along with it.

      • Re:This is great, but I wonder... (Score:5, Informative)

        by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @07:59PM (#5830635)
        We are evolved to be resistant to cancers. Our cells have many built in mechanisims to prevent and destroy cancerous cells.

        Unfortunately, our body's mechanisms aren't quite good enough. But by that point in our life, we've already reproduced, and evolution can no longer help us.
        • So then we have stopped evolving resistances to cancer. Since we have already passed our genes on by the time cancer sets in most cases, there is no way to naturally select for cancer resistant genes. It is the same problem for many other problems that set in late in life. Because the genes that cause the problems have been passed on to the next generation the genes are not selectively removed from the population.

          Fortunately with our increased understanding of human genetics we could step over this prob
    • Evolution would only select against stimuli that would inhibit the transfer of genetic material to future generations. Cancer does not necessarily do this. People get cancer, generally, after they have children. Thus, their "flawed" genes are not removed. Someone did an experiment with fruit flies and only let those who lived past a certain age reproduce. After a few generations, the new bred flies all lived really long. Hmmmm...

      Or perhaps cancer works to hone out weak immune systems. Should people with we

      • Re:This is great, but I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by NonSequor ( 230139 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @11:24PM (#5831676) Journal
        Evolution involves more than just surviving to reproduce. You could say that longer lifetimes are "justified" evolutionarily if after reproducing the parents help out their children to ensure that they live to reproduce. For a species like fruit flies, I doubt there is much that the parents could do to help their young. But for humans, it is vital that the parents stick around.

        As another poster noted, we do have resistances to cancer. It is only when these mechanisms are overridden that cancer develops. One could say that medical science is just another mechanism that we have evolved to protect ourselves from cancer and other threats. Medicine is the result of our intellect, an evolution which has done great things for us so far.

  • I'm not sure about making ANY modification to humans that is hereditary. If there's a problem with this cancer solution, it would basically affect everybody, and we'd all be screwed.
    • This discovery will almost definitely not come to market as a germline alteration. Instead, someone is probably going to find a protein that mimics what the body is doing, produce them, and then sell them.

      Germline alteration is just too risky.
      • Germline alteration is just too risky.

        Germline alteration is too risky with current techniques, but why shouldn't we want to incorporate this trait into our genome and make it inheritable?? If it were shown to have no great ill effects and would greatly increase the human lifespan and quality of life... then why not go for it?

        Conversly, Why take the risk that the anti-cancer factory is going to burn down with all the anti-cancer researchers inside? Just build this into our genome and then as long a

  • virii instead of mice? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by laard ( 35526 )
    If only we could breed a friendly virus that would attack cancer cells in the host body...but then I guess we'd have to make another virus to kill that one when we're done with it, and so on, and so on...

  • Cancer proof mice (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Researchers today announced the development of a cancer proof mouse. In an excellent report, 1000 mice were bred, none of which developed cancer. Unfortunately, their average life span was 12.3 minutes.

  • 2033 AD (Score:4, Funny)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @07:43PM (#5830553)
    The last remaining humans have been enslaved by a breed of mice that developed the ability to self-heal when attacked...the mice escaped from a lab in 2003 where they had been bred to be cancer-proof...unfortunately, nobody noticed the other "side effects" ;-)

    Seriosuly, though...I lost a parent to cancer at a young age, so it'd be nice to see some solid progress on this front.

    -psy
    • The goverment still denies funding the experiments that created thier leader, Moverine. After repeated assassination attempts, experts have concluded that his Admantium skeleton may be indestructable.

      More news at 11.

  • There goes all my cancer research if I can't get those vermin to come down with it. Dammit no matter how much sacharine I feed them they just seem fine.

  • Cancer-proof mice/rats? Bad news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sladelink ( 536962 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @07:52PM (#5830596)
    Anyone else here ever had a mouse or rat that died of cancer? I haven't had one yet that didn't die of huge cancerous tumors. Does anyone know the standard rate of cancer in small rodents, because if it's fairly high, I REALLY hope that they don't let this trait out of the lab and into the sewers/fields.
    • My rats have all died from upper respiratory or tumors. However, I wouldn't worry about it: rats and mice in the wild don't live long enough for cancer to be serious break on their population growth.

    • Re:Cancer-proof mice/rats? Bad news... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @11:18PM (#5831652) Journal
      Mice and rats in the wild don't die of cancer. Usually they get eaten. Sometimes they pick up other diseases. If nearly all human beings were eaten by some creature higher on the food chain--say, dragons--before the age of thirty, humans wouldn't have to worry about cancer, either. Lab animals only get cancer when
      a) they are kept in clean cages and cared for so that they live for years beyond their 'normal' lifespan,
      b) researchers deliberately induce tumour formation, and/or
      c) the mice have been bred (or genetically altered a la Harvard mouse) specifically to be susceptible to cancer.
      • In reference to (a)...
        By that logic then the only reason why cancer is a problem in humans is because we are living longer than "normal". I guess that makes sense though, since we didn't always live well into our 70's.
        So then the solution for humans is either selective breeding programs or genetic manipulation? or maybe we creat a lifespan law. Anyone who lives to see the age of say...65 has 5 years to live before they are "put to sleep" as they say in the animal welfare biz.
        Those are some scary ideas, b
        • In reference to (a)... By that logic then the only reason why cancer is a problem in humans is because we are living longer than "normal". I guess that makes sense though, since we didn't always live well into our 70's.

          It's one of the perqs of being a predator. If you're at the top of the food chain, you get to die of natural causes. Also, from the standpoint of evolution, anything that happens to us after age thirty-five, health-wise, is totally irrelevant because it won't interfere with our ability to

    • Ya, I had a pet rat that died of cancer. But it was four years old at that point and the typical rat lifespan is two years.
    • Breaking news, A lab rat today died of natural causes (a tomcat ate him.)
    • My sister had a mouse, once. It had a tumour almost as large as itself on it's hip.
      Unfortunately it died because she forgot to feed it, rather than from the cancer.

  • This + Harvard Mouse (Score:4, Funny)

    by sameb ( 532621 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @08:35PM (#5830825) Homepage
    And what happens if these mice & the mice bred by Harvard [harvard.edu] (that are incredibly susceptible to cancer) mate? Do they implode?
    • no, but the sex is incredible

    • The cause (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Catskul ( 323619 )
      Maybe this was the cause of the resistance.

      Most of the mice that are the subject of cancer research are "Harvard mice". As a previous post noted normal mice dont have to worry about cancer, because they get eaten before getting old enough to have cancer. So, normal mice evolve in ways to evade predators.

      For the "Harvard mice" the only threat is cancer. So maybe those mice have finaly evolved to avoid the only thing that is a threat to them: cancer.
  • ...one large step for INVINCIBLE MICE
  • I'd be interested to hear what the lifespans of these mice are. I've heard a hypothesis that a lot of the aging process is the result of things our bodies do to avoid cancer. It's promising that they mentioned the mice do not suffer from auto-immune disorders, but I'd like to know more.
    • 1.5 to 2 years.

      I heard the interview with the scientist on the As It Happens Radio show yesterday on the SF school dist public radio. It's pretty good actually.

      As It Happens is a Canadian news show. You can find it by going to NPR.org and searching the show forums.
  • Will we be able to benefit directly from this research in the form of a 'cure' along similar lines for humans? Or are we merely planning on breeding the mice to develop other forms of treatments which won't require human genetic retrofitting? It sounds rather wonderful, really, but cancer-free mice that had to be bred in the lab via eugenic mousemaking seems to have limited application if the only way to make humans immune to cancers would be to genetically engineer them that way. Would we continue to be
  • There is no need to 'breed out cancer' in humanity. The AMA and the Pharmaceutical companies have been lying to the american public for years, and have used their incredible lobbying power to block FDA reports that indicate the cancer-fighting power of the vitamin B17. If you really want a good book to read, as well as some mind-altering information about the 'cancer conspiracy' and why TREATING cancer is far more profitable than CURING it, go to www.worldwithoutcancer.org or do a search on AMAZON.COM for
  • You could not be more wrong. You are suggesting that cancer has a PURPOSE in organisms. In fact, it is a failure in the blueprints of a cell.

    What follows is pure Zavatonian speculation based on my observations.

    Cancer is whathappens when a cell forgets how to be a specialized cell and how to die. It is one of the things that can happen when the blueprints to make the cell become seriously damaged. By blueprints, I mean the DNA and/or RNA. A cancerous cell is an unspecialized cell that proceeds with a

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