Linda and bovine friend
Isle of Skye
1999
Page A2 of the Wall
Street Journal for July 27th contains an interesting,
understandable, but slightly discouraging article about brain cancer. It appears that some common and highly
aggressive brain cancers – called glioblastoma
– are caused by a genetic malfunction involving the fusion of two normally
separate genes – FGFR and TACC. To
satisfy your curiosity I searched out the meaning of these acronyms. FGFR
stands for fibroblast growth factor receptor, and TACC is code for –
believe it or not – transforming acidic coiled-coil. Alone these genes serve useful functions, but
if a molecular mistake occurs and they fuse, you’ve got a particularly
nasty oncogene.
The research described in the Journal was performed at Columbia University and published in Science.
The usual cast of thousands were involved – 24 in this case. (Did you know that in med pubs the principal
author is listed last?) In it
they report that three out of 97 human glyoblastomas investigated contained the
fused gene. When they extracted DNA from
these tumors and injected it into mice, 90% of the unfortunate little fellows
developed cancer. Further
experimentation showed that when the infected mice were treated with existing
“FGFR blocker” drugs (already approved for certain types of cancer), their
life-expectancy doubled. That’s about
all I know about the subject; I’ve got some papers to read the next time it is
too wet to be outside.
So, I could let myself get discouraged. The average life-span of a human being with
glioblastoma is 14 months; all this work to stretch it to 28 months? And that supposes that the mouse results
translate into humans, which is by no means certain. Also, only about 3% of this nasty kind of
cancer is caused by FGFR-TACC fusion; what causes the other 97%? To heck with it; I’m going for a walk.
Oh, by the way… I am
going on my summer drive-about in a few days and won’t be back at the blog
until early September. Keep on
Advocating!
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