Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Science

Cancer's Origin Story Features Predictable Plot Line (stanford.edu) 23

Cancer cells-to-be accumulate a series of specific genetic changes in a predictable and sequential way years before they are identifiable as pre-malignancies, researchers at Stanford Medicine have found. Stanford Medicine blog: Many of these changes affect pathways that control cell division, structure and internal messaging -- leaving the cells poised to go bad long before any visible signs or symptoms occur. The study is the first to exhaustively observe the natural evolution of the earliest stages of human cancers, starting with cells that have a single cancer-priming mutation and culminating with a panel of descendants harboring a galaxy of genetic abnormalities.

Identifying the first steps associated with future cancer development could not only facilitate earlier-than-ever diagnosis -- when a deadly outcome is but a twinkle in a rogue cell's eye -- but may also highlight novel interventions that could stop the disease in its tracks, the researchers say. "Ideally, we would find ways to intercept this progression before the cells become truly cancerous," said Christina Curtis, PhD, professor of medicine, of genetics and of biomedical data science. "Can we identify a minimal constellation of genetic alterations that imply the cell will progress? And, if so, can we intervene? The striking reproducibility in the genetic changes we observed from multiple donors suggests it's possible."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Cancer's Origin Story Features Predictable Plot Line

Comments Filter:
  • by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2023 @04:23PM (#63678173)

    Took my wife. Took my friends.
    Fuck cancer.

    • Cancer is primarily a mitochondrial disease. Depending on which organ is sick, your prognosis varies. After Xrays earlier this year and ongoing hormone treatment I should be OK for a few more years. The problem is getting suddenly weak and then difficulty building strength and endurance up again.
  • "a panel of descendants harboring a galaxy of genetic abnormalities."

    So 5G phones from Samsung do cause cancer

  • Long ago (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2023 @04:46PM (#63678223)

    I remember reading long ago that cancer wasn't so much a series of novel mutations that happen to result in a 'new program' in your DNA, but rather a series of specific failures that restrain other bits of DNA.

    Basic cellular function isn't particularly cooperative with neighbours, but to be a multi-cellular organism there need to be a lot of additional functions that are contra-survival at the level of the individual cell. The evolutionary payoff is a greater survival rate for the genome that the entire organism shares.

    So you don't have to have a whole new 'reproduce' function, or a whole new 'trick the surrounding body into supplying more blood' function. You just need to cut the brakes that are holding back the existing systems. Still complicated - the right bits of DNA have to break in just the wrong way - but far, far more likely than entirely new functions evolving into cancer from scratch.

    • Yes, something like a cell should respond to the outside signal to self-destruct but cells that have become cancer have that response turned off. That is just one of the body's defense mechanisms.

      But I have also read that before becoming cancer cells, normal cells apparently first go through a phase called "senescence" where they are effectively a zombie -- neither performing their function nor turning into indistructible parasitic form. It is during that intermediate phase that the body has a chance to cle

  • Saw this on ScienceDaily several days ago. Slowness of Teh DotSlash aside, cancer needs to be eliminated, although the how of it I believe is more complex than what this article suggests. This said, I'd like to see it eliminated at the pre-cancer stage; I lost two Aunts to this fucked-up abbreation of cellular functioning, and I have a horrible feeling it skipped a generation from them.
  • Kurzgesagt did a video on it recently - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Basically cancer keeps fighting until it finally tricks your body into thinking it's normal, or it exhausts your body.

    You get it, your body fights it off, but if it didn't get everyone, there's a leftover bit that's a bit stronger, and like evolution, survival of the fittest. The cancer that survives your immune system grows stronger and stronger until it overwhelms your body. Catch it early while it's still weak and you can get rid of it before it becomes a problem.

    • Kurzgesagt do amazing videos, and I love them, but there's just so many on the topic of cancer (or black holes) that I've forgotten about anything else they did.

  • One problem with this would be over-diagnosis.

    Most people probably are living with cancerous cells and lumps, but they get taken out by the immune system fast enough. Or sometimes the cancer is so benign it goes unnoticed, and people die from other things before that cancer ever gets close to becoming a problem.

    There are probably orders of magnitude more of cells with these kinds of mutations that are in all of us all the time. Most of them will not get close to becoming cancerous. Finding them theref
    • Re:Over diagnosis (Score:4, Insightful)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2023 @08:08PM (#63678621)

      No. Over-diagnosis is nowhere near a problem as under-diagnosis. If you can see it, or you can feel a lump, it has already progressed to billions of cells and you can be damn certainit knows how to evade the immune system. It’s deadly to ignore a lump. Breast or lung Cancer found in stage I is over 90% curable. In stage IV it is over 90% incurable. 600,000 people just in the USA die of cancer every year. How many die of over diagnosis? While a case can be made that some highly sensitive screening technology is over diagnosing cancer, the risk from under-diagnosis is far worse and the benefit of early detection is high.

      • Like I said, Hannah Fry's documentary on cancer is worth watching, because it precisely tackles your objections. It even talks about breast cancer overdiagnosis.
      • I am recovering from cancer and I do think that a substantial number of people who got cured of cancer, never had it in the first place - they had something else. Cancer treatment can be very expensive, debilitating, painful and so on and goung tbrough all that for no reason can shorten your life.
  • You mean it wasn't Mr. Green in the library with a candlestick? /sarcasm regarding the plot line

    Seriously...a good friend has cancer, actually multiple forms of cancer. He has to regularly visit a major medical center for cutting-edge IV drug drips just to keep all of his cancer tumors under control and avoid even more cancer-related surgeries.

    He lives on borrowed time since every day is a blessing for him. So I try to visit him as often as possible.

    So when anyone says that Cancer Sucks...I totally agree wi

If all else fails, lower your standards.

Working...