Linda and the wrath of Henry VIII
I have
written quite a few times previously of immunotherapy and my hope that it would
be a potent weapon against ovarian cancer.
However, of late I have begun to mumble ill-temperedly about how things
weren’t working out so well. Turns out
immunotherapy is a wonder-worker for some cancers, but is largely a bust for
OVCA. This website helps to explain why.
I should
have written “helps”, above, because the cited article is dripping in
biotech-speak, and is several rungs above my educational level. You might give it a go anyway; you are bound
to get something from it, if only a renewed appreciation of just how infernally
complicated cancer biology seems to be.
For my part I glommed onto statements such as “…. The tumor knows that
in the presence of this molecule it must produce this other molecule in order
to protect itself from those nasty T cells and thus grow and multiply”. (My phraseology, of course). HOW
in hell can a tumor know
anything? More to the point, how can
purely Darwinian evolution account for such a complicated defense mechanism –
especially considering that the tumor in no sense “reproduces”, and moreover
kills its host?
Maybe there
is a Devil, after all.
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