James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo Win Nobel Prize For Medicine (theguardian.com) 54
An American and a Japanese scientist have won the 2018 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for discovery of a revolutionary approach to cancer treatment. The Institute -- 50 professors at the Stockholm facility -- chose the winners of the prize honoring research into the microscopic mechanisms of life and ways to fend off invaders that cut it short. From a report: James Allison and Tasuku Honjo will share the 9m Swedish kronor (roughly $1 million) prize, announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The two scientists have been awarded the prize for their discovery that the body's immune system can be harnessed to attack cancer cells.
The immune system normally seeks out and destroys mutated cells, but cancer cells find sophisticated ways to hide from immune attacks, allowing them to thrive and grow. Many types of cancer do this by ramping up a braking mechanism that keeps immune cells in check. The discovery is transforming cancer treatments and has led to a new class of drugs that work by switching off the braking mechanism, prompting the immune cells to attack cancer cells. The drugs have significant side effects, but have been shown to be effective -- including, in some cases, against late-stage cancers that were previously untreatable. The physics prize is to be announced Tuesday, followed by chemistry. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be named Friday. No literature prize is being given this year.
The immune system normally seeks out and destroys mutated cells, but cancer cells find sophisticated ways to hide from immune attacks, allowing them to thrive and grow. Many types of cancer do this by ramping up a braking mechanism that keeps immune cells in check. The discovery is transforming cancer treatments and has led to a new class of drugs that work by switching off the braking mechanism, prompting the immune cells to attack cancer cells. The drugs have significant side effects, but have been shown to be effective -- including, in some cases, against late-stage cancers that were previously untreatable. The physics prize is to be announced Tuesday, followed by chemistry. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be named Friday. No literature prize is being given this year.
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When did cdreimer become Slashdot's whipping boy?
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When a bunch of retarded trolls with too much time on their hands decided to bully him, and the rest of slashdot, including moderators, decided to either idly stand by or participate.
The continued allowance of campaigns like this is one of the signs of how slashdot has turned into a far right cesspool of stupidity.
Captcha; "predicts". Yeah "-1 I hate you and while I have no arguments, I have modpoints", here we come.
find sophisticated (Score:3)
>"The immune system normally seeks out and destroys mutated cells, but cancer cells find sophisticated ways to hide from immune attacks"
That is strange wording. Cancer cells are not autonomous, learning, clever, and planning. They are just mutations that "happen", randomly due to replication errors and external events (like radiation, viruses, and chemicals). Sometimes there just happen to be cells that mutate in a way that the immune system doesn't recognize. We all have cancer cells in our bodies, probably all the time, and normally they are caught and killed by our immune systems. The above statement makes it sound like they are planning something with a "will" :)
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>"The immune system normally seeks out and destroys mutated cells, but cancer cells find sophisticated ways to hide from immune attacks"
That is strange wording. Cancer cells are not autonomous, learning, clever, and planning. They are just mutations that "happen", randomly due to replication errors and external events (like radiation, viruses, and chemicals). Sometimes there just happen to be cells that mutate in a way that the immune system doesn't recognize. We all have cancer cells in our bodies, probably all the time, and normally they are caught and killed by our immune systems. The above statement makes it sound like they are planning something with a "will" :)
Look at "find" not in the sense of "seeking out", but rather "stumbled upon". As you say, we have mutated or cancerous cells in us all the time, but our body kills most of them. Only the ones that hit the mutation lottery get the chance to kill us. Although, as for having a will, since some cancers can be made up of cells from all over the body (gotta love those pictures of tumors with hair, teeth, etc), if one develops with brain tissue is there a chance for some rudimentary brain activity?
Re: find sophisticated (Score:2)
Sounds like a good start to a Sci fi movie where the cancer brain is able to take over cognitive functions and starts screaming at the cancer clinic " Stop trying to kill me!" :0
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Seems fine to me.
The method only has to be complicated to be appropriately described as "sophisticated", it does not matter how the aforesaid complex method was arrived at; intelligence is not required. Evolution comes up with plenty of sophisticated solutions without using intelligence.
Sophisticated does not require planning (Score:5, Insightful)
That is strange wording. Cancer cells are not autonomous, learning, clever, and planning.
It's not strange wording at all. Sophistication is a statement of what something is, not how it was arrived at. Things don't have to have intelligent thought behind them to be sophisticated. Trees do not have what we regard as intelligence but you'd be hard pressed to argue that a tree leaf isn't an astonishingly sophisticated thing. Enormous sophistication and complexity can arise from very simple processes and evolution - no clever learning or planning required.
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>It's not strange wording at all. Sophistication is a statement of
I was more targeting the word "find" as odd, not "sophisticated." "Find" implies it was looking or trying. It is more like "happen" or "occur" or something like that.
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The really big news is no Lit. Price this year (Score:2)
This morning they announced a two year prison sentence for rape, against the husband of one of the Swedish Academy members, that scandal is the reason there will be no Literature price this year.
Terje
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No, the reason is that the Academy which gives out the literature award has been infested by petty, arrogant academics who have been institutionalized to the point where they've lost sight of anything other than their own egos.
It will be interesting to see if this conviction could possibly clear things up. In a reasonable world it would weaken Horace Engdahl - who have defended Arnault to the death and pretty much is the entire reason for the gridlock - enough to make him take his leave. Unfortunately witho
What dead writer was considered? (Score:1)
I saw "no literature prize" and wondered what dead writer the Norwegian Nobel Institute was considering. The Institute doesn't award posthumous prizes, which is why it withheld its Peace Prize in 1948 in memory of Mohandas Gandhi.
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I saw "no literature prize" and wondered what dead writer the Norwegian Nobel Institute was considering. The Institute doesn't award posthumous prizes, which is why it withheld its Peace Prize in 1948 in memory of Mohandas Gandhi.
Well, the Norwegian Institute doesn't award the literature prize so it doesn't really matter who they consider.
Besides, there have been other occasions when no prize was awarded, sometimes for the reason that they didn't think anyone deserved it.
Literature (Score:2)
No literature prize is being given this year
They should really start reading slashdot.
Zero on topic posts (Score:3)
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What a bunch of losers. Which I at least know how to spell.
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How about some info on how they managed to get immune system to discriminate well enough between cancer and normal cells (which have nearly the same DNA) well enough to make this more good than harmful? What about reasoned discussion of this and alternate approaches? Not here. Disgusting.
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How about some info on how they managed to get immune system to discriminate well enough between cancer and normal cells
The Nobel prize is typically awarded long after the science around it is hyped. It is not even uncommon that the academy awards people for "the wrong research" if the groundbreaking research was too controversial.
If you are interested in the subject you should check the older Slashdot articles about it where people who knows more about the subject have posted their comments:
Drug Turns Immune System Against All Tumor Types [slashdot.org] (2012)
Killing Cancer By Retraining the Patient's Immune System [slashdot.org] (2013)
'Living Drug' Tha [slashdot.org]
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Not here. Disgusting.
And here you are, adding to the problem.
You want info? Google's right over there. Look it up and supply a comment that actually helps fix the problem you are so upset about.
Should be no prizes till the fucking cure somethin (Score:1)
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From my lay perspective medical advances in the last 30 years have been weak, AF.
Over the last 30 years, average live expectancy has gone up by 5 years.
The only thing they seem to have become really really good at is billing.
That is an American problem. It doesn't much affect the other 95% of the world.
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