GUIDED NANOBOMBS

Marion, Linda, and me

That's my funeral bola tie.  Wonder where we were.

Back in the 1970s, I think it was, there was a particularly odious cigarette commercial involving some handsome and witty dude who defined a millimeter as “Like, small.”  Well, today we will consider the nanometer which is a unit of measurement equal to “like small” divided by ten million.  

A nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter..  There is a thing called a “nanoparticle” that is to be visualized as a sphere less than 100 nanometers in diameter.  These tiny balls are increasingly important in cancer research; I have written about them several times, initially:

http://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/04/good-things-come-in-tiny-pmedeieval.html

Nanoparticles are important because they can be used to deliver medicine to the right place, and only the right place.  Suppose you have just found some lethal organic compound that kills cancer cells quickly and without compunction.  You would like to inject it into your cancer patients.  However, there is a catch: this stuff kills healthy cells, too.  So, you are up a creek.  But wait: if you can encapsulate your poison in nanoparticles that are addressed specifically to tumor cells you are in gravy (your patients will live, and your Porsche is just around the corner.)

It seems that some clever people at Sloane Kettering are hot on the trail of such a combination.  They have discovered that the blood vessels in many types of tumor (including ovarian) “express” a protein that is not found elsewhere  in the body.  Using techniques that they must teach in the upper reaches of graduate school, they have created sugar-based nanoparticles that will bind to these proteins.  Next they stuff them with cancer poison and turn them loose.  In mice (poor devils) they work wonders.

Of course, there other cancer types that do not express this protein (it is called P-selectin).  However, it turns out that if you “stress” (their word) such a cancer with weak radiation they respond by beginning to express P-selectin (and thus sealing their own doom,)  Moreover, for reasons not well understood, tumors all over the body – not just the particular glob irradiated – begin to express  P-selectin, too.   The immune system probably is involved, they speculate.  However it works, this seems to offer a way to attack tumors that have metastasized.  Many more trials are in the offing.  Do not hold your breath. 

This is not a particularly easy article to wrap your brain around, but here it is:

http://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2016/nanoparticle-tumor-vessels?cid=eb_govdel

By the way:  Back many months ago I announced that the NCI, presumably for budgetary reasons, had cancelled their newsletter.  Well, maybe they hired the right lobbyist  or something but whatever: it’s back.  Just click on the Web address above, then on “Subscribe” and you will get lots more email.

ALL ABOUT IMMUNOTHERAPY (as of now)

Linda and . . .  a baby

She has gray hair, so this was during her long remission, Thus:

This can’t be any known relative. 

Did she just scoop up a random baby to cuddle?

Not impossible.

Well, the august and authoritative NYTimes has, once again, published a superlative article on cancer research.  Here it is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/health/what-is-immunotherapy-cancer-treatment.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

I will readily admit that – lacking Dick and Joanne Ingwall – I would be forced to subscribe to the Times in order to stay current, despite the fact that they (the Times, not the Ingwalls) seem poised to endorse Donald Trump (that’s a joke, folks.)  But if the Ingwalls are happy to assume both responsibility and expense, who am I to refuse?  Anyway, thanks, Dick and Joanne.  I will acknowledge you in my Nobel speech.*

So, the NYTimes has brought forth an explanation of immunotherapy:  how it works, how much it costs, and where you can get it.  Click on the link above and read it.  It is simple, clear, and short.  You don't need me to appreciate it.

*See http://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/03/lets-fight-ovarian-cencer.html

BREAKTHROUGH? No such luck.

Sisters

Proteins are the workhorses of eukaryotic physiology – for good and for evil.  Here are some Brits who have discovered that (1) a certain protein (SOX2) can be used as a very early warning of the onset of ovarian cancer and (2) that another protein (an enzyme, SLK2) is necessary for OVCA to spread.  Breakthrough?  Probably not.  To detect high levels of SOX2 it is necessary to sample the fallopian tubes – no mean feat.  As for SLK2, the biochemical pathway(s) whereby it does its dirty work appear to be unknown.  However, as I have written before: every little bit of knowledge helps.  Someday there will appear a biochemical Darwin, who will puzzle over the accumulated facts, then quickly rearrange them and – voila – a cure for OVCA will arise.  May she appear soon!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/07/28/ovarian-cancer-test-on-horizon-as-scientists-find-earliest-signs/

DATA SCIENCE: Or, why you should have studied computers in school.

Our skinny period

Would you have guessed that the U.C. San Diego School of Medicine employs someone described as a “Data Scientist?”  Well, read this article and you will see why. 

https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2016-07-21-researchers-ID-cancer-gene-drug-combos-for-precision-med.aspx

Faithful Readers, and there are thousands, already know all about precision medicine – that is, the creation of drugs or drug combinations that target specific mutations.  They also know that before a drug can be marketed it must receive the blessing of the FDA.  The FDA also weighs in on whether a drug approved for, say, colorectal cancer can be used to combat, say, melanoma.  Evidence that such a drug allocation might be useful rests consists of evidence that the misbehaving biological pathways in both cancer types stem from the same mutation(s).

Well, ye gods!  There are hundreds of cancer types involving thousands of mutations.  Moreover there are so many drugs, extant and conceivable, that only God (and the FDA, of course) can keep track of them.  Ergo: a Data Scientist is required. No doubt she drives a Porsche.

This article shows how one goes about determining which drugs will work on which cancers.  The work to date mainly involves yeast; our furry murine friends are threatened.  There is so much work to do that the UCSD people are attempting to farm it out internationally.  ISIS need not apply.

LIQUID BIOPSIES and PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

Hiking in Scotland

More and more one reads bits about “personalized medicine.  Often this means using the patient’s genome to determine what went wrong that resulted in cancer.  (This would seem to require sampling the tumor itself.)  Knowing what went wrong then permits study of just how (the “biochemical pathway”) this particular error results in its malign behavior.  Maybe a drug already exists that mucks up or repairs that pathway: if so, use it.  Or, if no such drug is available, persuade a granting agency or drug company to develop one. 

Well, a useful new application of personalized medical techniques allows oncologists to detect the recurrence of cancer very early and very simply.  First, sequence the tumor DNA and pinpoint the tumor-specific peculiarities.  Then, periodically draw a sample of blood (“liquid biopsy”).  Scan the sample for fragments of tumor DNA.  If they are there, the tumor will recur, If not, it won’t.  This works because solid tumors shed fragments of themselves into the blood stream.  The method appears to work particularly well in cases of ovarian cancer.

Yes, I know this was unusually boring (although not unimportant.)  I am still recovering from the energy-drain occasioned by simply WATCHING my two ggrandkids at play.  At least I got to use a cool two-bit word (malign) as well as an inelegant-but-cheering verb phrase (muck up).  Here is the article:

http://acsh.org/news/2016/07/22/a-big-advance-in-personalized-medicine-ovarian-cancer/

CAT POO

Quito, Ecuador

CAT POO FIGHTS CANCER!

That should grab your attention.  This represents a British tabloid’s attempt to suck you into reading an article about some legitimate research performed at Dartmouth University.  Apparently some proteins somehow associated with your ordinary disgusting cat box have been shown to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.  They have been used on mice with ovarian cancer, to good effect.  There aren’t enough details given to say anything more’ the main purpose of this blog is to announce that I am back at work, after a great holiday in Cordova, Alaska with my family.  Sarah stayed in my house and left it spotless; let’s see how long it takes me to screw it up. 

Here is the cat poo article:  http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/692344/Parasite-found-CAT-POO-used-fight-ovarian-cancer-tumours-research-study

STEM CELL CLINICS: Let the buyer beware.

Guess where.

Burning question:  Is there room to add the Donald?

People will attempt to make money out of anything.  Apparently there are over 300 “laboratories” scattered about the country that will “treat” your ailment using stem cells,  They  (purportedly) remove stem cells* from a sample of your tissue (blood, fat, mucus, who knows), cultivate them in vitro, then feed them back into your ailing body – all, of course,  for a whopping fee.  Some anecdotal successes are noted; however, some such enterprises have been forced to flee the country.  The FDA is in hot pursuit.  The bottom line:  read these two articles

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/health/stem-cell-clinics/

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?chnl=job&utm_source=publisher&utm_medium=organic_listings&utm_campaign=affiliate

and consult an expert  before you send off your package of bottled spit wrapped in a big fat check.

Of course, this is not to say that legitimate stem cell therapy is doomed to expensive failure.  Far from it: induced pluripotent stem cells are a hot item in medical research.  It is possible to “reverse” the differentiation of (some? all?) human cells, in effect turning them back into pluripotent stem cells that are capable of becoming almost anything in the human body.  Theoretically, these induced stem cells can be used – somehow – to repair and/or replace human biological malfunctions.  Legitimate scientific projects to do this are underway.  Legitimate clinical trials presumably are underway, or will be soon.  Again, consult an expert.  And don't look ,at me.. 

*These are not pluripotent stem cells.  Rather, they have differentiated into narrow specialization: for instance, stem cells in bone marrow can produce red blood cells but nothing else.  Even cancers are said to have stem cells, for Christ’s sake!  Another of nature’s bad ideas.

http://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/08/cancer-stem-cells-may-they-rot-int-hell.html