On a footpath in the Yorkshire Dales National Park
Well, here’s an interesting guy. His name is Mel Greaves, and he is Director
of the Centre for Evolution and Cancer, at The Institute for Cancer Research,
in the U.K. He has written a book about
evolution and cancer, which I have just ordered through Abe books ($3.48). I will append a book report someday.
The article that brought Dr. Greaves to my attention is
short and not particularly informative.
However, it seems that what Dr. Greaves is attempting to tell us is that
it is time to stop trying to cure cancer,
and instead concentrate on managing it. He states – and it makes sense to me – that
cancers routinely have the ability to “evolve around” any given treatment
designed to eradicate them – The treatment may be successful for a time – but
then the cancer comes roaring back, slightly modified by natural
selection.* His thesis then is: Most
people contract cancer in their 60s or 70s.
Let’s concentrate on buying them 20 more years of healthy life. Like I said, makes sense to me. I wonder what Cliff Leaf thinks?
*Other folks have other battle plans, of course. These fall into the category of "Hit 'em with the whole kitchen sink, all at once." That is - treat them with drugs that will kill the predominant strain of cancer, along with others to cover all the potential exceptions. Dead cancer cells can't evolve! I think this may take more genetic expertise than we have currently, however. Or more money.
So, anyway, I went to Google Scholar to see what Dr. Greaves has
published lately. He has published a lot,
most of which would fall into my Lithuanian
category (Meaning - I can’t understand it.)
One article that I could understand, almost, is very interesting. He writes there about “covert” cancers – ones
we have, but that either have not yet blossomed into full-blown existential threats,
or are of the sort that will never do so.
Maybe other oncologists would refer to these things as pre-cancerous
lesions. Anyway, says he, we all have
them, and they accumulate with age. At
81, this is not a comforting thought.
Here are the links.
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective, and makes sense. And of course we need to do all we can to prevent it in the first place. But I don't think it will ever be totally gone, or ever stop killing people. It's just too hard to catch it early enough to cure it in 100% of cases. But I'd love to be around 200 years from now and see what progress has been made.
ReplyDeleteYeah, me too.
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