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.