A UNIVERSAL CANCER CURE? Maybe a glimmer of hope.

Linda and Raelyn Joyce

Borrego Springs, 2009

Now let’s see if I’ve got this straight.  There is a gene named p53 (sounds like a WWII fighter plane) that is sometimes referred to as the “Angel of Death”.  This gene “codes for” a protein that tells badly damaged cells to go ahead and die.  To illustrate the depth of my learning, I could have said that “P53 initiates apoptosis”, but of course I would never show off like that.  Anyway, cancer cells certainly are “badly damaged”, but p53 lets them go on their way, multiplying and causing trouble.  Why?  Well, apparently cancer cells defend themselves in one of two ways: they either disable the p53 gene (mutation) – I may have cause and effect a little screwed up here, but never mind; - or they disable the p53 protein by attaching another big biochemical blob – MDM2 - to it.  Thus, two ways to fight cancer, both involving p53:  P53 has long been known as a key player in the cancer game; Science magazine named it “Molecule of the Year” way back in 1993, and interest in it has been intense ever since.   So why is there still cancer?  As with so many other promising avenues in cancer research, initial euphoria gives way to “Well, hell, it’s a lot more complicated that I thought.”

An attempt has been made to insert healthy p53 genes into cancerous cells, so far to no avail, although efforts to do so continue.  A more promising approach has been to attack that portion of cancers (I gather it’s large) enabled to prosper  by virtue of the MDM2-p53 protein union, this by administering a drug that delivers a small molecule that will pry the two apart.  (How in heaven’s name do they do stuff like that?).  An experimental drug doing this has cured one type of cancer in mice, completely and without any fuss.  (Of course, one of the researchers is quoted as saying “If we just wanted to cure cancer in mice we would have been out of a job 30 years ago”).   Small scale “efficacy” trials in humans currently are under way.  There are three big drug companies competing to get the best drug on the market first: Merck, Roche, and Sanofi.  Curiously, there is another, much smaller, company that is leading the race: Cellceutrix, with their drug Kevetrin.  Reader comments to the NYTimes article I am paraphrasing (http://nyti.ms/XZS1PB) include two from people associated with Celleutrix, expressing outrage that their little company was ignored in the article.  Expect Pfizer or  Novartis or the like to buy out Celleutrix and thus get in the game,  making a few multi-millionaire biochemists as a bi-product.  By God, if they can cure cancer – any cancer, let alone a whole bunch of them – they deserve their reward.

Because, you see, this type of clinical treatment supposedly is independent of cancer type or origin; it should work equally well with many cancer types, common and uncommon – ovarian, alas, not mentioned.  Back during the Nixon administration the Feds initiated a “war on cancer”, visualized as  a medical version of the moon-landing program.  It failed, not least because cancer was found to be so disparate – there isn’t a “cancer”; rather, there are a whole host of cancers, each with its own characteristics.  Now, maybe there is hope for a general cure, after all - and p53 may be our White Knight.

By the way, the book “The Emperor of All Maladies: A biography of cancer” has a very readable – if at  times horrifying – history of cancer treatment.  Read it only if you have a strong stomach.

This blog comes to you indirectly from Dick Ingwall, who did not write it but fed me the information (again, http://nyti.ms/XZS1PB).  Dick deserves to be co-author on many of my blogs, but he is too modest to allow it.  Or maybe he simply is protecting his scientific integrity.





NOT OC. I NEED HELP. I shouldn't, but I do.

This blog item is too trivial to merit a picture.

I am freightened by TV remotes, so why did I think I could manage cell phones and email?  The sad fact is that I have so screwed up my hotmail account that I can no longer access it, and they won't let me change the password until I convince them I am me, which I have been unable to do.  In desperation I have started a gmail account.  Please write me there; the address is mebeckjr@gmail.com.  Also if you have written me any important emails in the last three or four days, please forward them there.  Also, have a good Christmas; I am doing my best to have one, too.  Myrl

Oh, PS.  My cell phone ate my telephone file, so if you think there is any change that you will want a call from me, please email your number.

MAN"S BEST FRIEND. Maybe the dog after all.

Linda and friend

Mennonite village, northern Mexico, 2010

Did you know that dogs suffer from many of the same cancers as humans do?  I certainly didn’t.  Furthermore, given their “compressed” life spans (relative to us) the rate of progression of their cancers is higher than in humans.  Throw in the cost of vet services and you can see that the poor devils don’t have it so good.  So, I guess it is to everyone’s benefit – Canis familiaris as well as Homo sapiens – that scientists are using dogs in cancer research.  They don’t induce cancer in dogs (as they do with mice); rather they treat family pets.  Thus the dogs get advanced treatment and may be cured or have their lives extended – and humankind gets more knowledge.  A win-win situation, I think.

Some of the advantages of using dogs, instead of mice or humans  in cancer experiments are the following:

You have to buy the mice, and maintain them.  Dog owners, who are grateful for your attention, bring in their pets for free.

Tumors that arise naturally in dogs are more similar to human tumors than those induced in mice.

The dog gets free vet attention.

Dog’s cancers progress more rapidly than the same cancers in humans, enabling scientists to observe the efficacy of a drug or treatment in “real time”, so to speak.

And, on a lighter note:

Dogs never need to sign consent forms, they rarely hire lawyers, they don’t go on vacation, and you never have to explain to them just what in heck you are doing.

No dog ever pulled out of a clinical trial and elected to cure its condition using health foods and/or prayer.

Even when you hurt them, dogs still love you.

I wrote earlier (blog for 3/12/12) that the mouse, not the dog, was man’s best friend.  I may have been wrong

  

THE 2012 BECK FAMILY CHRISTMAS LETTER

Well, shoot - the Beck family now consist of only me, but I am sure that Linda would want me to keep the tradition going, so here it is.  Many of you will receive a paper copy in due course.  With more pictures.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

&

a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Without Linda here to gently remind me, I might have totally forgotten about the Christmas letter until it was too late.  However, my neighbors’ lights reminded me.  I am tempted to simply cover the page with pictures, write a few of the usual words, and let it go at that.  Instead, I will give a brief outline of what my life is like now that I am rattling around in a big, empty house.  Really, it isn’t so bad – but it could be a whole lot better.

Most of you know that I am volunteering three days per week in Seattle: Mondays at the Fred Hutchinson Center for Cancer Research, and Tuesdays/Wednesdays at the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.  I also write a blog (http://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com) describing my adventures.  It is supposed to be funny, but I attempt to sneak in a little information about cancer research.  With Fred Hutch I am a “Research Advocate”, so this blog is one way to advocate, I guess.  With the Rivkin people I just do odd-jobs of a clerical nature, thus freeing time for people with more skills to put them to work in the research end.  When I am in Seattle I stay with my daughter Karen, which gives me a chance to know her better.  So I stay busy and try to be useful.  Do I miss Linda very much?  All the time.

I went to our place in Borrego Springs for a few days early in the Fall, and I’m going back right after Christmas.  I will give a few geology lectures to the Paleontology Society, and help them rewrite the geology section of their student documents.  I also will explore the desert in my new jeep Wrangler.  And go out to dinner a lot – the ladies in the Paleo group take good care of me.

The entire Beck/Kelly clan met here for Thanksgiving, which was a great pleasure.  My kids’ careers continue apace.  Of my three grandkids, the oldest (Amanda) is married and working for Alaska Fish & Game, the second (Olivia) will graduate from WWU this year, and the youngest (Angelina) is a freshman at Montana State University, in Bozeman.  I see Carolyn, Linda’s sister, several times each year.  She helps me with my computer problems, of which there is an endless supply.  I play a little golf when it is warm (I should say “play at golf”: because my game is so bad.)  My cats are fine, my monkey-puzzle tree is magnificent, and I just got a new computer, which promises to give me endless hours of frustration.   My family decided to skip presents this year and donate to ovarian cancer research instead.  If you decide to do the same, go to Linda’s tribute (http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/goto/lindajoycebeck) and follow the instructions.

The world is supposed to come to an end on December 21^st.  In case it doesn’t – HAVE A WONDERFUL 2013.

KICK-START YOUR T-cells, and hope for the best

These bears had the misfortune to cross the path of Paul Kelly.
Never mess with a kid from Wisconsin

1987

Dick Ingwall again has furnished me with an excuse to write a blog-bit.  Again, the article is in the NY Times, and its web address is http://nyti.ms/VxuHXB.  Again, since I know you won’t read it even if I ask you to, I will summarize.

It appears that a 7-year-old girl in Pennsylvania who was near death a year ago, from something nasty called acute lymphoblastic leukemia, is now healthy, happy and bouncing around (see video recommended in the appended "comment").  She owes this truly remarkable result to a new treatment developed at the University of Pennsylvania.  The treatment is still regarded as experimental but has been used on several leukemia victims who had nothing left to lose.  The results have been mixed: several adults and our little girl have obtained what seems to be complete remission, several others have had partial success, and several more got no benefit whatsoever.  Naturally, they (the U. Penn people) are trying to figure out why. 

The treatment consists of extracting a few million T-cells from the patient, then using a dead HIV virus as a “vector” to insert a new gene into them, whereupon they are re-injected back into the patient.  The idea is  to alert the T-cells (part of the immune system) to the presence of an enemy, whereupon they go to work.  (Sometimes they are referred to as “Killer T-cells”.) 

The results can be horrendous.  In the case of our little girl, death very nearly ensued.  She ran a high fever, became swollen “beyond recognition”, was on a ventilator, and unconscious for a week.
Through the good offices of a drug called (well, it’s unnamed) she recovered.  May she never relapse.

This treatment so interested the Swiss drug company Novartis that they are giving $ 20 million to found a new research facility at U. Penn.  The economics of this is interesting.  This T-cell modification technique calls for personalized treatment: no drug can be put on the market to be taken by millions.  The cost of the treatment is said to be about $20,000.  (This, however, contrasts favorably with the cost of an alternative treatment – bone marrow transplant – which costs significantly more and, I seem to gather, is less effective.  It is not clear to me how Novartis (full disclosure - I own a few shares of their stock) hopes to profit from this research.  Being Swiss, I'm sure they have figured it out.

There is some hope that similar methods can be used to attack solid tumors.  Maybe even ovarian cancer, I hope. 

I stumbled on the NY Times “comments” appended to this article.  They are interesting.  Naturally, most consisted of something on the order of “Thank God”, or “I am so happy for the family.”  A minority, however, took umbrage at the notion that a drug company would seek to profit from a life-saving treatment, whereas an equal number replied “How else would they have enough money to develop new drugs and endow research facilities, you blockhead?”  No doubt the first group would suggest that the government do the work, design the drugs, and distribute them at cost.  There are examples of this (well, minus the distributing part) that work:  The NCI, for instance.  However, having once worked for a Federal scientific agency, I really don’t think this is the way to go.



THE MARSHA RIVKIN CENTER FOR OVARIAN CANCER RESEARCH.

Linda at the Copper Canyon, northern Mexico

Our last trip, 2010

It is a Thursday morning; raining, of course.  Last night I got back from Seattle at dinner time, barely in time to prevent my cats from starving to death. (At least that is the impression the wanted to convey.)  I usually get back on Tuesdays, and that was the amount of food I left them.  From now on I’ll have to supply more, because I think I will be spending most Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.  (Let’s call it MRC from now on.)  Let me tell  you about it.

The MRC is housed in a small suite on the 7^th floor of the Heath Building, which is attached to Swedish Hospital (see below.)  As far as I can make out, it employs less than a dozen people.  It has two main functions.  It raises money for ovarian cancer research, and doles it out in small increments ($60K-$ 75K)  to worthy cancer researchers, either as small starter grants for established scientists who want to probe some new approach, or as support for younger people (working in the ovarian field, of course) to help them get started.  It also runs clinical trials of its own.  MRC works hand in glove with my lab at Fred Hutch; the two even share staff. 

MRC is the creation of Dr. Saul Rivkin.  His wife died of ovarian cancer.  Dr. Rivkin is an oncologist, and he still practices.  In his spare time he has conceived, organized, helped fund, and to some extent supervised MRC.  I am in awe of the guy, although I have yet to meet him.  I wish I had done something half so important with my life.  Dr. Rivkin, I believe, has his practice at Swedish Hospital, which I turn to next.

Ah, Swedish.  Where MRC is compact and orderly, Swedish is sprawling, disorganized, and nearly impossible to navigate.  It is not actually a hospital, it is a medical conglomerate with a hospital imbedded somewhere inside.  From the map they give visitors it seems to cover something in excess of eight city blocks.  That same sketchy map shows about 20 named buildings; all multi-story, of course; some in excess of 10 floors.  It shows five garages; the one I will park in (free parking!) is six levels underground.  No doubt Stockholm is the largest Swedish city, but on a busy day I’ll bet the Swedish Hospital complex runs it a close second.  All these buildings are tied together - without a vestige of system - by a maze of walkways, tunnels and sky bridges.  Nobody has mastered them all.  A person who appeared to know told me that patients and visitors sometimes are found huddled in a corner, weeping with uncontrollable frustration at their inability to find their way.  We “staff” are morally obligated to help them, although what help I could give is doubtful.  Remember the Kingston Trio?  They wrote a song about the Boston Subway system; “trapped forever ‘neath the streets of Boston; he’s the man who never came home”.  The words popped into my head when I had to ask three people how to get from Employee Health to the Heath Building, and one of them had no idea!

I was planning to end this blog with a cute little allusion to Thesius and the Minotaur, but the analogy is too far fetched.  Besides, the only dangerous creature I am likely to encounter in the Swedish labyrinth probably would be armed with a stethoscope.      

   

CANCER SCREENING: WHEN IS IT WORTHWHILE?

A Michigan Fall

She loved dry leaves

Essentially the entire issue of the November 27, 2012 NCI Cancer Bulletin is devoted to a discussion of cancer screening.  As both of the groups I try to help are engaged in just that, I read it with interest (and more than my usual comprehension.)  It is really good stuff, and (as always) I urge you to read it.  However, I know you won’t, so I will toss out a few observations and maybe some analysis.  I am tempted to weave a few egregious lies into some future blog, to see if anybody notices and checks.  I promise not to do it this time, though.

First, there is a long piece by Dr. Virginia Moyer, who is the head of the USPSTF: that is, the United States Preventative Services Task Force.  This is the group that has caught so much flack over their recommendation that healthy men not be screened for prostate cancer using PSA.  (All males over 60 will know very well what that is.)  To get current with the Prostate Cancer Wars, re-read the blog of the same name (3/27/12) and especially the appended Comments. 

It turns out that the USPSTF is an all-volunteer group of 16 and is substantially independent of control by government or anything else.  They were set up in 1984 to counter the perception that the medical community was neglecting prevention for cure.  They make recommendations for preventative measures, including screening.  They have had their bad days; one especially bad occurred in 2009, when they issued guidelines for mammography.  They recommended that women under the age of 50 – and over 75 – be not screened at all.  The AMA went ballistic.

Dr. Moyer does a good job of explaining their reasoning.  Any screening regimen involves false negatives.  False negatives engender anxiety, discomfort, and expense.  In the case of cancer, there are some which are easily cured – and others that are incurable.  It doesn’t make sense to screen for these.  Pancreatic cancer is a case in point; there is no viable treatment.  For the rest of cancers, screening might save lives, and whether to screen or not is a judgment call.  I reason that ovarian cancer is one of these.  If caught early, it’s completely curable; if later, rarely so.

The problem here is that one does not know how to value a few lives saved relative to a whole bunch of needless treatment and anxiety.  I tend to think that one live saved easily balances a mountain of anxiety, discomfort and expense.  But that’s just me. 

Another great article concerns the role of statistics.  You know Mark Twain’s famous analysis of statistics.  Well, it seems still to be at work.  Some statistics show that the life-span of cancer victims from diagnosis to death has lengthened dramatically in recent decades.   Good news.   But there is a problem: does this represent better treatment, or is it simply an artifact of screening?  For instance, assume treatment for cancer X is totally ineffective.  Persons not screened will be diagnosed later than persons in the screening arm of the trial.  Thus, the diagnosis-to-death interval will be shorter for the first group than the second, and it will appear the “progress is being made”, when in fact it hasn’t.  In fact, the screened group is less well off in that they had to live longer with anxiety.  So, I guess that screening is useful only for those cancers that are easier to cure in an early stage.  Ovarian is one of these.

NOT OC: TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH!

Whitman Mission

Kristen's graduation from Whitman college, 1986

I thought she looked beautiful in that dress.

For nearly 80 years people have been telling me to take better care of my teeth, and I have ignored them.  Probably since about age 4, when my mother stopped brushing my teeth and turned the job over to me, I have hurried through toothbrush time as quickly as possible.  Brush each tooth up-and-down?  Too much trouble, I mostly brush sideways.  Floss?  Forget it.  Check-ups every six months?  Only if somebody else made the appointment and then bullied me into keeping it.  Well, the chickens have come home to roost, to coin a phrase.  I am now paying the price.

A brief history:  At about age 12 I had my teeth straightened.  The braces were on for what seemed like many years (two, I think.)  There was a routine to follow to keep my teeth clean despite all that metal in my mouth.  Unless my mother nagged me I usually ignored it in favor of playing outside or getting to bed early.  The result: when the metal was finally removed I had 22 cavities, with a half-dozen or more yearly thereafter (until there was little tooth left to rot.)  When I went into the army all my left-upper molars were yanked by German dentists.  This shifted the chewing burden to other teeth, which – one by one – succumbed to the additional pressure.  The upshot is that I was finally down to seven teeth on my upper jaw, until this morning.  Now I have a full complement, and I hate it.

Yeah, I decided to get a removable plate.  (They call it a “flipper”; why, I don’t know.)  As I sit here writing my tongue never ceases to explore this alien thing in my mouth.  The coffee I am drinking tastes funny.  When I say the letter “s” it sounds like a snake’s mating call.  I am assured that it all will be better bye and bye, but they equivocate over how long “bye and bye” may be.  They also assure me that “not much taste” will be lost owing to the fact that there is a plastic coating covering much of the roof of my mouth.  What does it avail to acquire teeth able to chew a steak, if you can’t taste it?  My father had a full upper plate in his 50s and he managed, so – I guess – I will too. 

I should remark that I had two alternatives.  One was to do nothing and live off soup and mashed potatoes for the rest of my life.  The other was to get implants in strategic places: they estimated four would do.  Cost estimate: $30,000. `   

So, take care of your teeth.  You never know how much you need them until they’re gone.





MICROBES MAKETH MAN

Our 28th Anniversary

Linda is playfully decked out in Mexican blouse and Navajo jewelry

and holding her bridal bouquet!

I returned from Borrego Springs Friday.  When my good friend Joanne Ingwall dumped me off at the Palm Springs airport the temperature was 76, the sun was hot, and there was no breeze.  Good T-shirt weather.  When I got off the plane in Bellingham the temperature was 48, there was a light drizzle, and the wind was blowing.  Sweater and raincoat weather.  This dramatizes the dilemma of the long distance north-south commuter; there is no way to avoid being dressed incorrectly at one end or the other.  But I shouldn’t complain; the weather gives me an excuse to stay inside and clean up stuff I have been avoiding for months.

Among the things I cleaned up this morning was a stack of old magazines.  Included among these was the August 18^th issue of the Economist.  It had a weird version of Da Vinci’s Man in a Circle painting on the cover, with the caption “Microbes Maketh Man”.  This rolled me back on my heels because it sounded very like the New Yorker article I had just blogged about: “Germs are Us”*.  Sure enough, it was: the two deal with precisely the same research.  Of the two the Economist version is longer, explores the topic much more thoroughly, and is nearly as amusing.  You could do worse than to read it yourself: online at www.economist.com/node/21560523.  I excuse myself for missing it because it came out at the precise time that I was fixated on my broken ribs. 

So, the Economist version of the story digs into the subject much deeper.  It appears that the so-called “microbiome” (the sum total of our single-celled inhabitants) may in part be responsible for obesity, under-nourishment, heart disease, diabetes, and even multiple sclerosis.  But not cancer, darn it; manipulating our bugs won’t cure cancer, although we all wish it would.

Some gee-whiz facts:

            An adult human is composed of about 10 trillion cells.  In his/her gut alone live 100 trillion bacteria.

            Together the micro-organisms that call us home weigh more than 2 lbs.

            We inherit about 23,000 genes from our parents.  If we include as “us” our microbial element we have more than 5 million.

             

There is far too much stuff in this article for me to summarize effectively; go read it yourself.  And – although there is no mention of transplanted earwax – fecal transplants are discussed at some length – although, being a British publication, the word is "faecal".

As an aside, directed at New York Times readers and other liberals:  The Economist is safe to read.  Yes, it likes market forces, limited government, moderate levels of taxation, and tends to be slightly libertarian, but it is no Rush Limbaugh nor even the Wall Street Journal.  It endorsed Obama.

*Actually, in a Comment to "GRANDMA'S CURSE"

CROWDSOURCING: A new tool.

In an English tavern.

No, that's not Guiness.  It's her coke.

 

 

Perhaps inspired by  various TV reality shows, the NCI has instituted a program wherein a cancer-related “problem” is defined and “teams” from around the globe invited to work on it.  Then, after the lapse of some time, NCI (or somebody) decides who came up with the best solution and rewards them – hold your breath – with a trip to San Francisco and a chance to publish a peer-reviewed paper in a prestigious medical journal.  It may seem like I'm scoffing, but I'm not:  I think it is a very good idea. 

The projects I just read about are part of a larger program called DREAM:  Dialog for Reverse Engineering, Assessments and Methods.  DREAM engages in “crowdsourcing”, which means taking advantage of expertise and knowledge across the research community to attack specific problems.  NCI-DREAM is a subset  focused on several aspects of breast cancer.  Apparently 52 teams elected to participate.  They were given a standard genome, then invited to: (1) using the genomic data and, I guess, anything else they could drum up, predict  the response of 18 breast cancer “lines” to 31 previously untested drugs, and (2) predict the activity of pairs of compounds on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (again using a standard cell line.)  The value of this sort of research to individualized cancer treatment is pretty obvious.

A team from Helsinki won sub-challenge (1); a team from Texas . #2.    

There also is another challenge afoot, one to predict breast cancer survival rates.  It uses something called “computational biology”.  Around every corner in a cancer research institution one bumps into a statistician, a computer programmer, or this thing called a computational biologist.  And to think I  used to look down on biologists as hopelessly non-quantitative!  Like, geology uses higher math?

P.S.  I am back from Borrego Springs until after Christmas.
P.P.S.  I have used 88 pictures so far, and I am beginning to forget which.  If you catch me doubling up, please let me know - I have many I want to use.  For those who don't know:  myrlbeck@msn.com. 





GRANDMA'S CURSE

Linda Joyce Beck, mountain explorer

The Economist really is an excellent news magazine.  Not only does it discuss important matters from all over the world, often in an amusingly cynical way, it also publish interesting stories about medicine (as well as books, science in general, and other such matters).  For instance, in the November 9^th issue, on page 82, there is a short article you all should read*.  Its title is “Grandma’s Curse”.

Seems some scientists working in Los Angeles have discovered something important and very surprising about smoking rats.  Actually, the rats themselves didn’t smoke; rather the researchers, headed by one Dr. Virender Rehan, took pregnant mother rats and smeared them with nicotine.  Then they observed the outcome.  As was expected and well understood, baby mice from the F1 generation all showed smoking-related asthma-like symptoms.  Why not ? – they were developing when their mothers were dosed.  The surprising observation  made by Dr. Rehan and his colleagues was that even baby rats of the F2 generation displayed the same symptoms.  This was unexpected because neither these baby rats nor their mothers had been directly subjected to nicotine.  Obviously, Rehan is waiting eagerly for the F2 ratlets to grow old enough to produce an F3 generation.  If they, too, show the symptoms of smoking a Nobel awaits.

What this experiment seems to show is that these rats were capable of inheriting an acquired characteristic.  Inheritance of acquired characteristics – Lamarckian evolution – supposedly  was exploded by Darwin.  Francis Crick, famous co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, also is well known for denying the possibility of genetic information becoming modified by the environment or experience (baring mutations, of course.)  So Dr. Rehan is proposing that it is not the rat DNA that is being modified, but rather things they call “epigenetic factors”.  I don’t really understand epigenetic factors.  However, it seems that stuff secreted by the mother and placed into the egg influences the early development of the embryo in an all-important way.  The guess is that nicotine inhibits the activity of one or more of these “maternal determinants” – although I still fail to understand how this extends to the F2 generation.  I await enlightenment.

If you want to see the original article, go to Google Scholar, type in Virender Rehan,  then restrict your search to articles published in 2012.  If you do this and read the article, please explain it to me.

Anyway:  the take away message.  For one more reason, don’t smoke.  Especially if you plan to get pregnant.  Your grandchildren will thank you.

*Or, you can get it on line: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21565573-some-effects-smoking-may-be-passed-grandmother

PROGRESS

Font's Point

As many of you know, the group I am trying to help at Fred Hutch is focused very strongly on discovering one or more blood “biomarkers” which, alone or in conjunction with other evidence, will indicate – with a high degree of reliability – the presence of early-stage ovarian cancer.  This has proved to be difficult, and at times the difficulties leave me a bit discouraged.  So I am happy to find that a similar test for early stage lung cancer has been found, and promises to save lives, not to mention reduce exploratory surgeries (and thus suffering, and cost).  Maybe my group will be so fortunate.

The lung cancer people work at something called Cizzle Biotech, in Yorkshire, U.K.  (You can’t help but like that name.)  They find that a protein they call Ciz1 (Cizzle 1?) is present in copious quantities in early stage lung cancers  but not at all in neighboring tissue.  Furthermore, they can obtain high “specificity” using only a tiny amount of blood.  They are stoked.  I used to think that lung cancer was an inevitable death sentence, but apparently if caught early enough it isn’t.  Good for our British friends.  Of course, there are hurdles to be leaped involving technology, and probably regulatory issues, but they will be properly leaped over in time.  Let’s hope the same happens for other cancers, including ovarian.

On another subject entirely, I spent the morning at the first general meeting of the Anza-Borrego Paleontology Society.  I gave a talk, about which the less said the better.  The proceedings were dominated – or should I say contaminated – by a representative of the Cal State Parks people, who described in painful detail the new forms all new volunteers MUST fill out in order to be allowed into the program.  When I joined there was nothing like that, and if I were ABOUT to join now I would think twice about it.  Some cabal of bureaucrats in Sacramento has extended its turf, at the expense of reason, common humanity, and the public at large.  I felt sorry for the guy charged with telling us all about these new impediments to paleontological progress.  I complained lately about the Swedish volunteer requirements (several times in fact.)  They are as nothing compared to this.  Fortunately, I’m grandfathered in.        

   

NOT OC: I AM A SORRY SACK OF STUFF

Linda Joyce Beck, desert explorer

But not in the summer.

Do you know that there actually are people – most of them Europeans, with Germans said to predominate – who come here in the summer to see what it is like to hike in 110+⁰ heat?   Even some Englishmen are involved.  (You know about Englishmen, and mad dogs, of course.)  Miraculously, some of these idiots survive.  At least the Germans should know better.

I write this because I just came back from walking up Hellhole Canyon, in what seemed like 110⁰ heat.  I walked for only a bit more than an hour – and I am exhausted.  To make matters worse, when I got back the lying bastard of a thermometer in my jeep said the temperature was only 72⁰!  (If it wasn't at least 100 degrees I will eat my walking stick.)  And to make matters doubly worse yet, my Internet is down.  (If you see this you will be able to deduce that I figured out what is wrong.) 

So now you understand the title of this blog entry.  I think I am being punished for voting for the wrong candidate today.  In my view Obama doesn't deserve a second term and Romney  doesn't deserve a first term – so, as usual, I voted for the Libertarian.  Since  Reagan the only candidate I have voted for with real conviction was McCain.  It may be that, in getting old and tired, I also am turning into a curmudgeon.  Can that be?

MITOCHONDRIA, GENETIC ENGINEERING, ETHICS: is there a conflict?

Linda points to a 2 million year old camel tooth she discovered whle hiking in the desert.

Yes, camels originated in North America, then migrated, and went extinct here

Where is that tooth located?  I'll never tell..

It hit 91 in Borrego Springs today.  I did my walk early in order to avoid the worst of the heat.  The desert I walk through not surprisingly is nearly devoid of trees, and thus of shade.  If it is 91 in the shade, you can bet it is a hell of a lot hotter in the sun.  That’s why I have been getting my exercise in the early morning, before breakfast.  Fortunately, it is supposed to drop to more tolerable temperatures later this week.  I suspect that those of you in Bellingham (and Eureka) would trade your wet, windy 50-degree weather for a little Borrego sunshine – not to mention those of you in Michigan, either digging out of a snowstorm or preparing to do so.  Only blog followers in Chile would be content to stay put; it is early spring there.  I can’t predict how my loyal readers in Latvia would feel –the blog has suddenly developed a following there, according to the Google blogspot “hit-counter”. Go figger!  Anyway, I will fly back to Bellingham on November 16^th and stay there through the holidays.  I should get my fill of PNW gloom pretty easily.

You will be excited to learn that I have finished the CITI exams and am nearly ready to be accepted as a volunteer with the MRC (Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.) I still have a fat form to fill out and an interview to survive, but I should be okay.  My career in unskilled clerical labor is about to launch!

Okay, about mitochondria.  You may know what these things are.  They are “organelles”, meaning tiny sacks of stuff, floating around in most human cells.   Their primary function is to act as dynamos, converting the energy in carbohydrate molecules obtained from the food and alcohol we consume – into an energy-form suitable for driving cellular processes.  Without functional mitochondria, we die.  Interestingly, mitochondria are inherited only from the mother.  Equally interesting is that they have their own genes: only a few dozen or so compared to the several tens of thousands contained in the nuclear genome – but they still have them.  What these mitochondrial genes do I haven't much of  a clue; if I ever find out I will put it in a “comment” to this blurb.  You may have heard of “Eve”, the Ur-mother of us all and chief fact supporting the “out of Africa” hypothesis about where we all came from.  She was deduced from analysis of patterns of variation in mitochondrial DNA.

Anyway, there are some nasty diseases associated with damage to mitochondrial genes; the list is very long, and depressing.  British scientists, however, have shown that hereditary mtDNA diseases can be prevented by transplanting healthy genes into the mother’s mitochondria.  The resulting offspring would have, in effect, two mothers.  However, as the maternal nuclear DNA would all be donated from the lady who will raise the kid, nobody but the parents and a whole lab-full of biologists would ever know.  The method needs testing – and therein lies the problem.

Britain, the U.S., and probably every other country that know how to make laws, prohibit “genetic engineering” as applied to human beings.  God, don’t I know it – the two CITI courses I just suffered through talked about the ethics of things like that until I felt like pulling out my sparse but precious crop of hair!  In a sense, this is “human genetic engineering”.  It also is a potential medical breakthrough that promises hope and eventual relief to lots of unfortunate people.  So once again there is a conflict between medical progress and strongly held ethical beliefs.  The Economist – from which I got some of this information - says that this dispute must be resolved in favor of continued research.  I agree.

     

WHY GREAT WEALTH CAN SOMETIMES BE GOOD.

Oregon Coast, 2007

Recall my sniveling complaints about having to take the CITI exams, in my last entry?  A faithful reader told me to buck up, pull up my shorts, and get to work.  Well, I am trying.  However, at times it can be hard to read essays on topics with names like these:

            Basic Institutional Review Board (IRB) Regulations and Review Process

Vulnerable Subjects:  Research with Pregnant Women, Fetuses and Neonates

Research and HIPPA Privacy Protections

Conducting Investigator -Initiated Studies According to FDA Regulations and Good Clinical Practice

There are 17 such “Modules” in the course I am attempting, each followed by its own exam.  I must finish them all with a combined grade of 80 or better (current status: 10 down, score 88).  And then there is another entire course to conquer.  But at least the tuition is negligible: free, in fact.

 I foresee a need for strong coffee.

Now, all this cannot be required just to verify that I am qualified to lick envelopes and file things.  I suspect that they want to make darned sure that their volunteers are serious.  Nobody would endure all this misery  unless they were hot to help.  And I am. 

But I really wanted to write about an article in the latest NCI Bulletin.   It seems that the University of Pennsylvania has received a gift of $25 million from the Basser family, in honor of Faith Basser who died of ovarian cancer at age 44.  The money will help fund a new research facility, the Basser Research Center for BRCA, that will concentrate on all aspects of the cancers that are known to be influenced by mutations in the two BRCA genes.  In other words they will pay attention to early detection, prevention, and treatment, as well as performing basic research.  The NCI  article contains information of use to nearly everybody – it turns out that the  BRCA genes influence a wide range of cancers, including several in men.  You should all read it, but I know you won’t, so I will list a web site where – with minimal effort and no biological training whatsoever – you can learn important anti-cancerous things.  Seriously: any of you women who suspect you fall into any enhanced-risk category should take the time to read this stuff.  I can only do so much.  So, Google NCI and find their web page, then read:

                BRCA1 and BRCA2:  Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing

BORED OUT OF MY GOURD, but pressing ahead

No baby?  No problem.

Just grab an armload of Carolyn's Teddy bear collection

During the heat of the day (it has been approaching  90⁰ this week, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future) I sit inside with my little Toshiba and endeavor  to pass the exams necessary to become a volunteer with the Rivkin people.  Yes, even to lick envelopes you have to pass an exam; two of them, in fact.  Each exam consists of upwards of a dozen “modules”, and each module is at least several pages long – and, I must say – awfully boring.  After studying each module I am required to take an exam.  So far I have completed three modules from the first course, and have passed two with flying colors and the third by the skin of my teeth.  Between modules I mess with my bird feeders, clip the bushes, water the cactus, and even clean the kitchen.  You know my heart’s not in it when I prefer kitchen work to study.

Mind you, I am not blaming the Rivkin people.  Apparently this is a nation-wide sort of initiation ritual, mandated by various governmental agencies designated by acronyms consisting of three or more capital letters (FDA, for example.)  People who sweep the floors of labs or offices concerned with research on human subjects have to take exams; so do UPS guys who drop off packages!  Actually, I’m making that up, of course – but at times all this fuss seems a bit excessive.   But what do I know?  Most of my life I worked with rocks.  Rocks don’t bleed, complain, or hire lawyers.  I’ll gladly take their damned tests if it will allow me to do something about ovarian cancer.       

NOT OC. SAFE, SOUND & VERY STIFF IN BORREGO SPRINGS

Our Borrego Place, 2007

After about 30 hrs. in my "comfy" new  jeep – mercifully broken by five days with Carolyn in Eureka – I have arrived in Borrego Springs.  My digs were almost painfully clean*, everything worked, the plants were healthy, and the temperature was 80⁰ .  I was invited to dinner by Joanne Ingwall and had my customary superb meal and super-abundance of excellent wine – not to mention good conversation.    My only regret was that there was no zucchini squash – Dick says that, although you all sent him many packages of delicious squash, they ate them all up.  He is going to try to grow some himself next year.  Good luck, on Cape Cod.

I have quite a few cancer-related things to read and pass on through this blog, but this morning I’m not in the mood.  In a few days, maybe…  I need to go for a walk before it gets too hot(!).

*But, of course, also painfully empty and quiet.

MORE HIDDEN NUGGETS OF FACT & SPECULATION

Cheyenne.  They grow 'em big in Texas

but they grow 'em bigger in Wyoming

I’m about to leave for Borrego Springs, so I shouldn’t be bothering you with these things for a week or more, probably more.  But since I know how you like to see pictures of Linda I have fabricated an excuse for one more blog-bit.  The excuse is this: people write Comments, most of which are chatty (that is a beautiful picure of Linda), jocular (when will you ever learn to use spell-check?), or downright admonitive  (teleomeres don’t cause cancer, tis ‘tother  way around, blockhead!).  However, some are serious and present interesting facts, observations or speculations – and these certainly deserve to be read and pondered.  Unfortunately, not all of you can be notified of new Comments, and probably very few of you go back and read Comments on earlier blog entries.  So here are some places you should search for these nuggets.  I did something like this on 6/19; this merely brings it up to date.

Name of original blog follows comment

Another battle in the Prostate Cancer Wars, by me.  FOR MEN ONLY: THE PROSTATE CANCER WARS

Comment on ENCODE, the massive genomic study that promises great benefit to mankind, also by me.  ANOTHER SILVER BULLET TARNISHED.

Interesting comment on the parallels between animal and human medicine, by Bunny Schneider.  OVARIAN CANCER AWARENESS MONTH.

Also interesting, a comment about monozygotic twins and their development, by Kristen Beck.  ANOTHER SILVER BULLET TARNISHED

A damned interesting observation, also by Kristen, about ovarian cancer screening.   OVARIAN CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

An impassioned quasi-rant on smoking, flavored cigars, and tobacco advertising, by Bunny.   FLAVORED CIGARS?

Comment on pharamocogenetics and targeted therapies, by Kristen.  OUTLIERS

News of a huge ($3 X 10⁹ ) new research project in Texas, aimed at sequencing  cancer’s  genome and figuring out how to throttle it. I wrote it.  READ THE ECONOMIST

Musings on chemo-brain, also by me.  CIPN

Kristen answers my question regarding Myc: protein, gene, or both.  By the way, she is right – some proteins require more than one gene.  MORE ON Myc

Contrary results on multivitamins as a preventative for cancer.  At least for some, they work.  By me.  EAT YOUR GREENS Myrl Jr., 6/22/12

That’s more than enough.  I sure hope you appreciate it.  It took two damned hours and gave me a headache.

NOT EXACTLY OC; MORE AN EXCUSE TO POST ANOTHER PICTURE

Fall in Michigan

Richard, Linda, Marion

It is a spectacularly rotten day here in Bellingham.  The wind has ripped my neighbor’s flag to ribbons.  The deciduous trees, which have shown exceptionally vivid colors for this part of the world, are suddenly almost bare.   What were piles of crisp leaves that would have tempted Linda to dive in – are now sloppy mounds of rapidly decaying vegetation.   What, you say, is so different?  Bellingham’s always that way.  Well, the problem is that we have had two months of dry, warm, sunny weather that – coupled with cool nights –  have given us a very promising early fall.  I should have known that things were going to return to normal when - last Thursday, our last nice day – I broke 50 in golf for the first time this year.  Whom the gods would punish they first make proud, or something like that. 

So, anyway, I need to prepare for my trip south, which will begin next Wednesday.  I will be driving my minimalist Jeep Wrangler down to Borrego Springs, stopping for a few days with Linda’s sister, Carolyn, in Eureka, CA.  Not long ago driving a Wrangler that far on highways would have been considered insane, or at least stupid, but they are more comfortable* now.  They also get better gas mileage – although I shudder at the prospect of filling the thing up in California, where gas is more expensive than whiskey.    Fortunately, I don’t have to haul much down there – I have ample shorts, t-shirts and hiking shoes stashed there already.  Oh, and underwear and socks, too.  We’re pretty informal in the desert.

Sometimes I get a little discouraged about cancer research.  It is so complicated, and so much about how things work is still unknown!  Heck, if geology was at the same state of knowledge about how the earth works as biologists are about how the human body works, we would still believe in a flat earth, and blame earthquakes on Atlas’s hiccups   But don’t get me wrong – biologists are neither dumber nor lazier than geologist, it’s just that their chosen problem is so much tougher to crack!  If you read these blog things semi-regularly you will remember that I have occasionally tut-tuted about how empirical cancer research often seems to be.  They look for things that will work – predict the likelihood of cancer in the future, predict its course, prevent it, cure it – without worrying overmuch about why they work.  Yes, there is plenty of pure biology going on – this new ENCODE program is a sparkling example – so maybe someday they will be able to base their inquiries on sound theory.  But in the meantime, I’m actually glad they are working so doggedly – even if empirically – and making progress.  A single woman saved from going through what Linda went through is worth a lot of research effort.  If you don’t believe me, ask Carolyn.  But, yeah, I’m getting lugubrious so I’d better stop.  It’s the rain and gloom outside. 

I started this as an excuse to post another picture of Linda.  I hope you like it.

*But see my comment.