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Biotech Science

MIT Team Creates Cancer Stem Cells 124

Posted by kdawson from the keep-those-babies-under-glass-please dept.
MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way in the lab to create large amounts of cancer stem cells, the cells that can initiate tumors. The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.
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MIT Team Creates Cancer Stem Cells More

MIT Team Creates Cancer Stem Cells

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  • ...of you know what.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Debello ( 1030486 )
      "Hello, Husband. How was work? I made you a cup of your FAVORITE COFFEE. It's fresh... Now drink up. Drink it ALL... Feel anything? No? You will in a few years."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Uzuri ( 906298 )
      Heh.

      Well, you know, all these cures for cancer in mice made a market for an uncure. We all should have seen this coming.

  • Almost there! (Score:5, Funny)

    by GrapeSteinbeck ( 970275 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:20PM (#20238657) Homepage
    Now we just need to to infect the top seven world leaders with it and we'll have a cure. (MAD TV reference)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Atriqus ( 826899 )
      Why was that modded troll? It was a joke; he even said what he was referencing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by kelzer ( 83087 )

      Now we just need to to infect the top seven world leaders with it and we'll have a cure. (MAD TV reference)

      Or just infect the top one world leader. Then we all win whether they find a cure or not. (Just kidding. I don't even want him to suffer like that. Now hemorrhoids, yeah, a real nasty case of hemorrhoids would be good!)

      • >> Now we just need to to infect the top seven world leaders with it and we'll have a cure. (MAD TV
        >>reference)

        >Or just infect the top one world leader. Then we all win whether they find a cure or not. (Just
        >kidding. I don't even want him to suffer like that.

        You are a good-hearted person. I'm not. I wish kidney stone cancer upon him with a nasty case of goatse-butt.
  • (unlikely though due to the fact that they'd have to be tailored specifically for each victim, otherwise the immune system would destroy them).

    Might work as a covert assassination weapon if they can get hold of the mark's DNA and create cell lines.

    -b.

    • Re:Tag: Bioweapon? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:26PM (#20238743) Journal
      There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.

      • Re:Tag: Bioweapon? (Score:4, Funny)

        by pajeromanco ( 575906 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:30PM (#20238795)

        There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.
        Cigarettes?
        • " There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.

          Cigarettes?"

          Well, those are more "self-inflicted"....but, they are fun.

          :-)

        • He said 'cheaper'...
      • There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.

        ... but not 100% reliable or even close to it. Some people just _don't react_ to carcinogens. Or the other hand, introducing tumour tissue that's tailored to their immunities...

        -b.

      • There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.

        Like polonium?

        Depending on who you are, there may be benefits to expensive and difficult.

        I wonder if this is hard to test for.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Thusi02 ( 998416 )
        This is precisely what I was thinking at an initial read. However, I am not too sure that there are "100% certain" effective ways to cause cancer to produce. This method of creating cancer cells is much more efficient and in a controlled manor. Having this enormous power of creating cancer can be deadly for the weak minds as they will use it for evil than good. There is definitely a "good" that can come out of it as when there are abundant amount of resources to be tested with, the researchers will try ever
    • It's not a weapon, it's a cure for /life/.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by e2d2 ( 115622 )
      Yes Mr President, our assassin has delivered the payload. The target should be dead in .. 5-10 years depending on health care and current insurance plan.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dmclap ( 1103635 )
      Assassination weapon? Cancer tends to take years to kill you. Sure, while this might speed the process up to several months or something, that still gives the person in question plenty of time to spill everything that they know, or otherwise cause serious damage to the cause that the assassins are trying to protect.

      No, there are much better and more clever ways to do these things. Like how they iced Georgi Markov [wikipedia.org] (always a classic).
    • Actually, this is dependent on the delivery system. For instance, one could use . . . say . . . bullets dipped in the stuff made from the generic DNA.

  • The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.
    Or, you know, give everyone they don't like cancer. Just saying.
    • slashdot trolls to point out that the team's lead researcher Dr. Tan Ince is a Turkish Muslim (and probably out to steal some burger-flipper's jerb). Just saying.

    • Or, you know, give everyone they don't like cancer. Just saying.

      Terrance: Hey Scott, guess what?
      [Fart]
      [Laughter]
      Scott: Uh, I hate you more than ever Terrance and Phillip. I absolutely abhor you both!
      Scott is motioning peculiarly at Terrance and Phillip.
      Phillip: What are you doing Scott?
      Scott: I'm wishing cancer upon you.
      Terrance: Cancer!?
      Scott: That's right, I'm trying to give you cancer with my mind.
      Terrance: Ah, stop that!
      Terrance hides behind Phillip.
      Phillip: Hey--Don't give ME cancer!

  • "No good will come of this".

    I got images of various "Resident Evil" scenes with zombies flooding the Northeast US and ... oh my.

    On a serious note, kudos to the lab geeks at MIT! You guys do some fantastic work :)

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Odd. I got the image of a factory putting the tumors into jelly molds and producing politicians, lawyers and civil servants.

  • Don't give me cancer! (Score:4, Funny)

    by EvilRyry ( 1025309 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:28PM (#20238761) Journal
    Terrance: What are you doing?
    Scott: I am wishing cancer upon you.
    Phillip: What?
    Scott: I am giving you cancer with my mind.
    Phillip: No, don't give me cancer!

  • They gave the stem cells a pack of Marlboros (Score:3, Funny)

    by postbigbang ( 761081 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:28PM (#20238763)
    and look what happened....

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cadu ( 876004 )
      the pack smashed the stem cell sample. 48 hours later they remove the pack and voilá, smashed [not cancer-growing] stem cells!

      now, if you had told me they grew a mouth and a pair of lungs from the stem cells and gave those a pack of marlboros, i would actually have believed it. :P

  • Scientists are the real moral crusaders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HumanSockPuppet ( 1120535 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:29PM (#20238781) Homepage

    This actually brings up an interesting idea.

    I've always been a proponent of the idea that scientists were the true moral crusaders of our age, not protesters, demonstrators, and certainly not religious zealots.

    Think of it this way - when scientists have perfected a means for reproducing reliable and testable human cancer cells in a laboratory, there will no longer be any need to use lab rats in cancer research. Cancer will be closer to being cured, and rats will be spared. What has the Animal Liberation Front done on that magnitude, apart from burn medical research facilities?

    I imagine that when we are able to create vehicles that produce no pollution, it will be considered excessive and morally repugnant to drive gas guzzlers. I imagine that we have developed a means of engineering meat that it will be considered immoral to kill living animals to get it. The idea here is that immorality is scaled and determined in terms of gross excess of what is necessary for survival, and that our technology makes survival easier (thus altering the scale).

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      While I disagree with your statement that "scientists were the true moral crusaders of our age", I find the notion that 'morality depends on science' to be intriguing.

      But if that's so, why is it okay to eat meat right now? You can adequately survive on plants and medical supplements right now. Does this not mean that killing animals is wrong already, or does personal comfort/quality of life mean alter morality also?

      Personally, I don't find it immoral at all to eat animals, no matter the situation. I will

      • Keep in mind that while morality cannot be quantified, much of its definition is drawn from human need. Most of the omnivorous among us (myself included) would agree that there is a quality to the experience of eating meat which is just as essential as the nutrients which the meat provides. Supplements also tend to be more costly than meat, and the very nature of their structure at the molecular level makes them sub-optimal for digestion in comparison with animal meat.

        You raise good points, but I don't

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Himring ( 646324 )
      Cancer will be closer to being cured, and rats will be spared.

      Which reminds me of that joke:

      "Scientists have started using lawyers in experiments instead of rats for two reasons: number one, the scientists don't get as attached to the lawyers and two, there are some things not even a rat will do...."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sonpal ( 527593 )
      Your idea is pretty interesting, but it needs to be developed further. The two examples that you cited are moral improvements that occurred as a result of scientists to work to improve something. What also needs to be considered is why the scientists were working on those tasks. Assuming that the research was not being done in academia, in both instances the motivation would be economics - the first one is convenience -> productivity -> faster research -> lower costs, and the second one is low p
      • Even in private industry, the sole motivator of research is not profit. Researchers will tend to work for whoever will pay them well, but given that there is a limited supply of genius, smart people tend to choose their field of research based on their own personal feelings, including their morals.

        While morals don't really explain the massive research behind Viagra, they do explain some of the morals behind urinary tract infection research, for example, since there really are more profitable fields of medic
    • Most human cell lines that are used in the laboratory are already cancer cells. The normal human cell reproduces a set number of times and then dies out. Cancer cells don't do this (that is part of why they cause a problem in the body). In many cases when scientists wanted to study a particular type of cell outside of the body, they would find a likely candidate and attempt to induce it to become cancerous so that they could grow it indefinitely in the lab. With rare exceptions, it is impossible to maintain
    • A) Scientists prefer to think of morality from utilitarian perspective as the future utility of their results MIGHT overweight what they did to get there. Now we all know that the ends don't justify the means expect when they do. This is about the point at which everyone throws up their hands and makes a personal decision about a morality question they can not answer. B)

      vehicles that produce no pollution

      . I am not sure exactly what you mean by this but I am fairly sure it is ridiculous any which way it is taken. The proper answer probab

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by atchon ( 968296 )
      The thing about testing against just cells is that that you miss out on interactions that one may not anticipate. As a researcher we have drugs which have worked fantastically in the test tube, but don't do anything in a mouse because of the complexity of the overall system. Rats are necessary because it gives a good model of overall what will happen if the mouse is given a drug because it offers the full system not just cells in a tube. As to later comments about using death row inmates, they live too lon
  • "Hey we made cancer airborne and contagious! You're welcome! We're Science. We're all about coulda not shoulda."
    - Patton Oswalt - Werewolves & Lollipops
  • Hooray! Try new Instant Cancer! 50% faster than regular cancer. Available at your grocer's dairy case.
  • Russell Crowe: Well, we couldn't find cancer, but we found a man with cancer. *Punches old man* Take that, cancer! And that! *Punches again*

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Zekasu ( 1059298 )
      I'm not sure why, but I found this funny enough to laugh at. --- Cancer cells, buy them today. They're ammonia and fat-free now.

  • We've found the cure! (Score:4, Funny)

    by MajorG17 ( 676534 ) <majorg17@hotmail.com> on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @12:49PM (#20239041) Homepage
    Eureka! All we have to do to cure cancer is take this machine and reverse the polarity!!!
  • What's the point of that??? Ok, now I have to leave my office... Time for a cigarrete!!
  • ...that bringing more cancer cells into the world makes people happy.
    • "I have to laugh, because I've outsmarted even myself. My enemy, my foe, is a cancer. In order to conquer the cancer, I have to learn to think like an cancer. And, whenever possible, to look like one. I've gotta get inside this guy's cell wall and crawl around for a few days."
  • Is anyone taking bets on how long before the first report of a critic of Vladimir Putin feeling a pinprick on the subway, followed some months later by cancer and death?
  • So does this mean that they will be able to grow new organs from these cells but those will already have cancer and will only be somewhat useful? I know, RTFA.
  • even these new stem cells.
  • But wouldn't it be better to do the opposite? I mean hell all we need is a few packs of smokes, a touch of this chemical, a touch of that chemical, and a pinch of high-dosage radiation and we can make our own cancer. It's unmaking cancer that is the trick no?
  • And here I was worried it would never happen.
  • for this is actually to solve the problem of human death because cancer cells are for all intents and purposes, immune to death since they block the shortening of the telomere with in their own cell structures, I can't remember what it is called but supposedly the science behind this would be to look at applying this ability to ourselves to block the degradation of our own telomeres, thus preventing old age death.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 )
      "for this is actually to solve the problem of human death because cancer cells are for all intents and purposes, immune to death since they block the shortening of the telomere with in their own cell structures, I can't remember what it is called but supposedly the science behind this would be to look at applying this ability to ourselves to block the degradation of our own telomeres, thus preventing old age death."

      Oh, that part is easy. [wikipedia.org] You can even buy the stuff on the open market now. Unfortunately jus

  • I thought with the HeLa [wikipedia.org] cells we got all we need? Immortal cancer cells that spread and divide ad infinitum.

    Is cancer some sort of infection? I thought it's a mutation gone wrong?
  • So agroup of scientists have inserted some genes into a primary cell and created a cancer cell line????? The just reproved that cancer requires inititation AND promotion. Lame

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