AN EARLY-MORNING EXERCISE

 

Linda and quilt

first chemo

 

I know, I’m supposed to be on a long hiatus, but the Kelly ladies (three generations of them) are sleeping in and I am trying to be quiet.  I haven’t even made coffee yet, for fear of disturbing their well-deserved slumbers.  One of them is an 18-month-old, so sleep is a rare and treasured commodity.

A recent NY Times issue contained an interview with Harold Varmus, retiring director of the National Institutes of Health, and a past winner of the Nobel Prize.  The title of the article is The Condition Cancer Research Is In.  Varmus thinks it’s in pretty good shape, but bemoans recent budget cuts (as, of course, you would expect him to do.)  According to his calculations we now (2015) have about 25% less funding, in real dollars, than we did in 2003.  He speaks at some length about the importance of fundamental biological research, which – he says – has shown the complexity and heterogeneous nature of cancer and thus illustrated the need for what he calls precision medicine, which I take to be equivalent to shaping the therapy to the individual cancer  .I agree, with reservations.  All this is good stuff, if you can do it – and, of course, afford it.

So, my early-morning take on this:

Thanks, Dr. Varmus. I am sure you have been a powerful weapon in our War on Cancer.  Enjoy your retirement.

It is true that cancer funding is down, in real terms.  Cuts should be restored.  However, I also think that we could be far smarter in how we distribute these funds.  Business as usual isn’t working.  See my blog The truth in small doses, and of course Clifton Leaf’s book of the same title.

And, finally, although we may be making progress against cancer in some areas, in several which concern me – pancreatic and ovarian – we are lagging pitifully.

The Kellys are up, and another hot day commences.

http://nyti.ms/19qcEB3

 

LONG BLOGGER HIATUS

I am about to enjoy a visit from part of my Alaska family, then immediately split for the land of moisture and cool air. (It has been over 90 here in Borrego Springs for at least a week.) On the way I will stop and see Carolyn, then after getting home I will spend a day or so petting my remaining cat. Then I will start blogging again. Hope you can get along without me for several weeks. Oh, yes -- I have a great picture of my cat Sea biscuit and me, but Blogger won't let me add it. Maybe someday I will figure out what I am doing wrong - but, don't hold your breath. I WILL TRY AGAIN.

See, when I try to add the picture, I get this kind of garbage!!!

GO LIE ON AN ANT HILL

Linda and the Singing Memnon

 

Did you know that people use stinging nettles to treat ailments like excess water, joint pain, urinary tract infections, hay fever, insect bites, and miscellaneous aches and pains?  Well, they do – or at least they formerly did.  Modern science has determined the active ingredient here is formic acid, also found in ants.  (Next time your rheumatism flairs up, go lie on an ant hill.)

Well, it turns out that formic acid may be useful in cancer therapy, as well.  Researchers at the University of Warwick, in the UK, seem to have shown that formic acid in moderate doses greatly enhances the efficacy of the drug JS07.  JS07, it seems, somehow disrupts the energy-generating mechanism of cancer cells, causing them to die a hideous (I fondly hope) death.  JS07 is described as a “metal-based (ruthenium) cancer drug.”  Apparently this metal-based stuff is combined with something called E-237, which is sodium formate, derived from formic acid.   One can greatly increase the effectiveness of JS07 by repeatedly renewing the supply of sodium formate.  Or so it seems.  Frankly, this article was hard for me to understand.  Read it yourself, and explain it to me.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/291216.php

Anyway, it is said to be particularly effective against ovarian cancer.

 



 

 



A BREATHYLIZER TEST FOR OVCA

Going out to dinner

 

It is abundantly clear that a means to detect the presence of early-stage ovarian cancer accurately, non-invasively, and cheaply would be an inestimably boon to womankind – as it says on the back of the MRC symptom card, “when detected early, over 90% of women survive (ovarian cancer)”.  To my disappointment, the suspicion has inexorably grown on me (an untutored outsider, remember) that the approach used by the Fred Hutch group I try to help isn’t working.  Looking for specific cancer-related miRNA molecules has been suggested, but no follow-up has been done, to my knowledge.   I have also read that it may be possible to actually detect cancer cells circulating in the blood stream.  Again, where that has gone or is going is a mystery to me.  Cancer-sniffing dogs have been mentioned more than once: would that it were so.  Now, another possibility:

http://www.separationsnow.com/details/ezine/14c226d1e62/Journal-Highlight-Assessment-of-ovarian-cancer-conditions-from-exhaled-breath.html?tzcheck=1

This paper deals with a method to (possibly) detect the presence of ovarian cancer by looking for certain organic molecules in a woman’s  breath.  How it is done shouldn’t concern us: we don’t have the background to translate all that biochemistry.  Suffice it to say that one breathes into a thing, and bells, whistles and lights do or do not go off.  This test was performed on a sample of 182 women, some of which had OVCA, most of which did not, and some had something called “benign gynecological dysplasia”.  The statistics were encouraging:  sensitivity, 79%; specificity, 100%; accuracy, 89%.  What was not discussed was how early this test might catch the disease. Obviously, you can’t test women with stage 1 OVCA unless you know they have it –and that is difficult to do.  Ultimately, a test that detects the disease in late stage 3 will be of little overall value.  Let’s hope this breathalyzer thing is more sensitive than that!

More work is, of course, needed.

By the way – this seems to be a definite international research effort:  Israelis, Chinese, people from Spain and Greece – but, curiously, no Americans.

Also:

Sensitivity: the probability that, if a test says you have something, you really do

Specificity: the probability that, if a test says you don’t have something, you really don’t.

Accuracy: I don’t know what in hell this is.  I guess it is some murky statistical measure of how likely the test is to be right.  If Jay Teachman read my blog, he could explain.  But he doesn’t.

 

 



 



LINDA ON HER WEDDING DAY: Our 33rd

A beautiful woman, in every way

This is our 33^rd wedding anniversary.  I will be busy with geo-things all day, but Linda will be on my mind the entire time.  I am of no great use anymore, but I intend to continue to work on cancer research until I am too old to lick an envelope or turn on a computer.  Fate gave me the most wonderful woman in the world, then took her away.  Maybe I can help modify fate for a few other people.



BLOGGER RECESS OVER, temporarily

Seamus & Me

That's him on the right, in case you are confused.

 

Take a quick look at this:

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/03/12/unpicking-the-genetic-patchwork-in-ovarian-cancer/

Diligent readers of this blog will find nothing much new here, but will appreciate a comprehensive review of what they already know.  If the optimistic tone of this article is justified, genetic sequencing of cancers finally is paying worthwhile dividends.  Read it and learn why I make that statement. 

By the way, this is the type of cancer that deprived us of my beautiful wife.

The Alaskans and the Flagstaffers (Amanda, James and Seamus Wiese; Kristen Beck and Joe Mortimer) have left, leaving the house depressingly silent.  My daughter Karen arrives next Sunday for a short visit, and then – on March 29^th – I will enjoy several days with daughter Linda, granddaughter Olivia, and great granddaughter Evelyn.  Then home, via Carolyn’s home in Eureka, California – to face off with the IRS.  So, not many new blogs between now and Tax Day.  By the way, this is #300.  If they average two hundred words I will have written the equivalent of a moderate-sized novel.  Maybe not so entertaining, but at least sincere.

In case you have forgotten, TP53, BRCA1 & BRCA2l are tumor-suppressor genes.



BLOGGER RECESS

Seamus and James

 

The Alaskans are here.  No new blogs for awhile.



GO AHEAD, OPEN THAT BOTTLE OF WINE

Big Bear Bebee family reunion

There are two babies in this picture.  Guess who has one of them.

From time to time it has been suggested that excess alcohol intake raises the risk of ovarian cancer.  Well, maybe not.  A group of scientists with distinctly Chinese names (but who give no clue as to where they work) have performed a “meta-analysis” to test that hypothesis.  You may already know what  “meta-analysis” is, but in case you don’t – it’s where somebody (one hopes with serious statistical sophistication) mathematically combines the results of many separate studies of the same question.  In this case the studies were “prospective”, meaning that people were followed for a number of years, their rate of booze intake recorded – and how many of them got OVCA determined.  Well over one million were involved.  Armed with the results,  it’s a relatively simple matter (I guess) to establish whether a correlation between alcohol use and OVCA exists.  The result: it doesn’t.  Whatever causes ovarian cancer, it’s not that Cadillac margarita before dinner.

Clearly this is only of secondary concern to me.  However, booze also is suspected as a causative agent for cancers I might possibly get (unlike OVCA).  And on that cheerful note I will end this essay, find a picture to go with it, get it posted – and then go and mix myself a Salty Dog.

http://7thspace.com/headlines/504813/association_between_alcohol_consumption_and_the_risk_of_ovarian_cancer_a_meta_analysis_of_prospective_observational_studies.html 



NOT OVCA: Life keeps bumbling along.

 

Is this man too old to drive?

Careful how you answer that!

 

About one year ago, I was backing out of a diagonal parking place by the Borrego Springs Post Office when I heard a sharp “bang”.  As it happened,  a very old lady (“very old” is defined as “probably older than me”) also was backing out, from the other side of the parking area.  Evidently we touched back fenders.  Not knowing what had occurred, she drove off.  However the upshot for me was that my (terribly flimsy) left back fender was completely dislodged, hanging by only a few threads.  I drove it back to Bellingham that way, with no problems, and later my grandson-in-law James Weise fixed it for me.  (Alaskans can fix anything.)

Well, today I was driving east on the main street through Borrego Springs.  On an ordinary day it is unusual for more than two cars per mile to be using that stretch of road at any one time.  Today there were a few more.  At a certain moment I began a left turn, then quickly realized that was the wrong place – and turned back.  At that moment a very old man in a BRAN NEW shiny red pick-up attempted to pass me on my right.  (Four days old!).  We nicked each other.  My entire right front (flimsy plastic) fender fell off.  His SHINY NEW RED TRUCK sustained a small dent.  He almost cried when he saw it; said he was afraid to show it to his wife. 

Our insurances have been notified and it appears that neither he nor I will be out any money, although I dread my next insurance bill.  I elected not to file a claim, saying that I would get it fixed myself.  (I have $500 deductible, in any case.)

Oddly enough, James Weise is due to visit next Tuesday.

 



 

OF COLDSORES AND CANCER

The skinny years, with Whiskers

Guildford is a small city in southeast England.  If you draw a line due west from Dorking, another WSW from Leatherhead, and a third SE from Worplesdon they will cross very near Guilford.  Got that?  If not, it is a few dozen miles SW of London.  So why should you care?

Well, actually you don’t need to care at all.  All you need to know is that Guildford is the home of the University of Surrey, and at the University of Surrey they do important cancer research, as explained by the following “media release”.

http://www.allmediascotland.com/media-releases/89490/media-release-could-the-cause-of-cold-sores-beat-ovarian-cancer/

This work at U. Surrey is funded by a private foundation called Worldwide Cancer Research, which seems to be a Marsha Rivkin Center writ large; last year they awarded 9 million British pounds to “pioneering research around the world”.  Sounds like my kind of place.

Linda suffered from cold sores much of her life.  As most of you know, cold sores are caused by a virus, the “herpes simplex virus (HSV), which apparently gets into you and then settles down for life.  It seems to be the case that Professor Gillian Elliot of U. Surrey has engineered the HSV virus to attack ovarian cancer cells, while leaving normal cells alone.  She is working on further engineering them to spread rapidly throughout the body.  I am struggling to subdue my optimism.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a woman working SE of Worplesdon found a way to cure ovarian cancer?



VIGIL: What does it do, and will it work?

We miss Linda, too

 

I have commented several times on how complete a waste of time and energy it is for me to tackle anti-cancer news by scrutinizing the scientific literature.  I have been at this study-and-blog thing for three years now, and I have worked pretty hard, for an old guy.  Yes, indeed, I know much more than formerly.  I know what the verb “to lyse” means.  I am okay with T-cells, and I can guess what a T-cell response might be.  I could give you a definition of shRNA, if you were curious. “Protein” and “antigen” are old friends.   But, what to do with the following paragraph?

Vigil, formerly known as FANG, involves engineering a patient's tumor cells to express the immunostimulator recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, which is designed to elicit a T-cell response against the patient's tumor antigens. The drug also includes bi-functional shRNAs against furin, an enzyme responsible for lysing the components of the protein TGF-beta that are involved in cellular proliferation and differentiation.

I took this from a PRESS RELEASE, for Heaven sake.  It is advising the (stock buying public) that Gradalis has a promising new drug against ovarian cancer in trial.  I usually can follow press releases fairly easily, but not this one.  However, I sense that this press release is announcing good news. News of any success in the fight against ovarian cancer is good news, although too many of these “potential breakthroughs” tend to fizzle and die.

And on another note, it is amusing to watch it try to rain here in Borrego.  All signs indicate that they are having a whopping big storm over on the coast: the wind is howling from the west, and dark, soggy clouds come rolling over the intervening mountains.  The rain clouds come on like a conquering army, determined to drench us with the rain we all are hoping for.  Not to be; upwelling, warm, bone-dry air from the Borrego sink stops the rain cloud in their tracks.  You can almost hear them whimper and moan as they dry up, wither, and die.  If we get 0.01 in tonight and tomorrow I will be surprised.  We always like rain here, unless it turns into a flash flood.  Too late for spring flowers now, anyway – the crop is sparse this year.