A NEW WEAPON AGAINST AN IMPORTANT FOE

Linda and her friend Janie

Amherst, Mass - I think

That's Linda's mom on the left

If you don’t read this link I won’t be indignant; it is dry and tough-going.  Nevertheless, I think the matter easily is important enough to blog about.  I’ve read it several times and Googled stuff I didn’t quite understand; here is what I got out of it.

There exists within us an important gene, KRAS. that is vital for the smooth and correct regulation of cell division.  In many types of cancer, mutated KRAS is a driving force, hence KRAS is classified as an oncogene.  One particular form of mutated KRAS, called G12C, codes for a protein that is present in a large percentage of cancers.  This has been known for many years but G12C has, for reasons far beyond my pay grade, been deemed “undruggable”.  Now an outfit called Amgen (AMGN; $234/share), one of the larger bio-research firms, announces that it has developed something that works against G12C; not only in mice, but in humans (Phase 1 trial underway}. The stuff they have concocted is called AMG 510. Nothing was said about AMG 510’s effect on ovarian cancer, but one can hope.

Almost daily I become newly awe-stricken by how complicated the processes that keep us alive and ticking are shown to be.  I would like to have been a cancer researcher rather than a geologist – but I doubt that I ever was smart enough!

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/kras-inhibitor-amg-510-clinical-trial?cid=eb_govdel

THE FRENCH MAKE GOOD WINE. and MEDICINE?

Linda, pretending to be inebriated

On our Norwegian cruise

I have long harbored mixed feelings about the French.  Not only do they eat all manner of slimy invertebrates and settle their important political issues by rioting; they refuse to use English under any circumstances.  However:  they do  turn out wonderful – if expensive – wines.  Now I report on something  else admirable – and French.

I have mentioned in several blogs how the science of applying immunotherapy to solid tumors has lagged.  Well, a French outfit named Transgene has taken up the challenge.  They have just received a go-ahead from our FDA for a Phase 1 clinical trial, which they will finance.  They apparently use a virus to deliver their juice to the tumor.  Every other aspect of the thing is far out of reach of my aged brain. 

Whatever, this must be big stuff because it was offered to the public by three separate agencies (below).  Read ‘em and tell me how this works.

https://apnews.com/Business%20Wire/5663c47521744243a6e4ad6c35f3e89c

https://www.precisiononcologynews.com/regulatory-news/transgene-moves-ahead-phase-i-study-first-individualized-ovarian-cancer#.Xe2AEJNKiUk

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/transgene-receives-fda-ind-clearance-053000188.html

A USEFUL SOURCE OF INFORMATION

LINDA TUSSLES WITH CAROLYN'S CAT

Good Lord!  I have been writing these blogs for over six years, relying on various sources – even a subscription to the NYTimes – for input.  Just this morning I got around to typing “ovarian cancer news” into Google – and found this:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/categories/ovarian_cancer

I recommend that you all bookmark this web site, and consult it now and then.  I certainly will.

By the way, Google also will spit up a similar-sounding web name:

https://ovariancancernewstoday.com/

No doubt this outfit also has important OVCA news – but they make you pay for it.  I prefer to hand over my money to folks already on the field.  For instance, Fred Hutch:

http://engage.fredhutch.org/site/TR/PersonalFundraisingPages/General?px=1148821&pg=personal&fr_id=1573

Little DNA SpaghettOs splashing around in your nuclei.

\Linda and her life-long friend Pat

Long, long ago I blogged that it seemed as though biomedical research was a babushka doll; every time you solved a problem another emerged.  Well, it still seems that way; the deeper we probe into how our system works, the more mystifying it appears.  If you don’t believe me, read this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/science/dna-genetics-cancer.html?te=1&nl=science-times&emc=edit_sc_20191126?campaign_id=34&instance_id=14116&segment_id=19106&user_id=c99dbc6ac441bb768f28d85e3c047546&regi_id=6924760320191126

You already know that our DNA comes in distinct linear segments called chromosomes, and that when a cell divides these chromosomes are duplicated and divvied up evenly.  You also know that our cells have elaborate means of selecting which genes are activated at the correct time and place; we call these controls epigenetic markers.  You may not have known that one of these epigenetic controls involves tightly wrapping the linear chromosomes around little knots of things called histones, thus preventing the messenger RNA strips from translating selected genes into proteins.

 

Well, now it appears that a cell’s entire DNA is not contained in chromosomes; there exist numerous small circles of “extra chromosomal” DNA swimming around in the nuclear cytoplasm.  Moreover, when a cell splits these little circles don’t necessarily divide evenly.  These little circles come in many sizes, and are numerous.    What they do is not at all clear, but you can bet your MAGA cap that they’re doing something; probably several things in fact, and some of them important.  Inevitably, much research is underway.

Babushka  dolls.  Full employment for molecular biologists until the end of time.

METASTASIS: NOT A CHEERFUL SUBJECT

AT THE SONNY BONO BIRD REFUGE

This is not a lighthearted blog.  Read it anyway.

Linda, my beautiful wife, died of ovarian cancer.  However, it was not the primary tumor that killed her; it was a metastasis – probably in the brain.  Such is the case with most fatal tumors.  This link gives you valuable insight into how metastasis works.  Simplistically, metastasis occurs when a bit of the primary tumor breaks off and is transported by the blood or lymph system to a place with the correct “micro-environment” where it can lodge and grow.  Much research has and is being done on this question of micro-environment – and how to make it less hospitable.  This link concerns brain cancer and is a bit technical in places – but you will persevere. 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/brain-metastasis-astrocytes-ppar-gamma?cid=eb_govdel

A GLIMMER OF HOPE

I don't know what's going on here

This is our new house

Maybe we only had one chair

If you read these things you will know that I have immense enthusiasm for immunotherapy in general, but am pessimistic about the pace with which it is being applied to solid tumors, and specifically OVCA.  Well, these two articles signal hope just over the horizon.  It appears that French and a Japanese research outfits have made significant progress on applying  immunotherapeutic techniques to ovarian cancer – in mice.  The method requires sequencing the tumor’s genome, then devising an individualized drug to croak it.  HOW this works remains several notches above my pay grade, but the FDA seems to be smiling upon it so there is reason for optimism.  A Phase 1 trial is in the offing. 

https://apnews.com/Business%20Wire/5663c47521744243a6e4ad6c35f3e89c

https://www.precisiononcologynews.com/regulatory-news/transgene-moves-ahead-phase-i-study-first-individualized-ovarian-cancer

SIDE EFFECTS

Linda, not quite enjoying a camel ride

2009

Our immune system has evolved for hundreds of millions of years  - heck, billions of years if we’re related to stuff like blue-green algae.  It is a fearsome weapon against would-be invaders: bacteria, virus, fungi, prions (look them up).  The immune system keeps us on our feet and going about our business, most of the time.  One thing it hasn’t been proof against until very recently is the internal threat known as cancer.  But now, thanks to the genius of those many people in white coats, immune treatments for many types of cancer have been developed.  If you read this blog you’ll know what they are.  Immunotherapy has yet to be successful against OVCA, but someday it will be.  Have faith.

Bur, as you might expect, there are problems.  If you start fiddling around with something as powerful and complicated as the human immune system, you should expect unintended consequences - some quite nasty.  And, of course, such is the case.  Read below to catch up on observed side-effects of various immunotherapies.  They range from trivial to catastrophic.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/cancer-immunotherapy-investigating-side-effects?cid=eb_govdel

ENTICING BUCKETS OF SNAKE OIL

Linda and Carolyn

Hippy-chick era

Sorry.  In the incredible excitement surrounding my 86^th birthday six months ago I neglected to alert you to this valuable contribution.  However: no harm, no foul; it still works.  

It seems that the “stem-cell clinic” boom continues and, in fact, is prospering.  This link will fill you in, and you should read it before you pay anybody to squirt stuff into one of your joints.  

None of these so-called “stem-cell cures” has received FDA approval; but neither have they been banished.  Most evidence cited by the stem-cell purveyors  is purely anecdotal; a few clinical trials have been initiated, but not successfully completed.  My guess is that there may be something in this “therapy”, but it won’t be obvious any time soon.  In the meantime:  Don’t toss a lot of your hard-earned money into what very well might be just a fancy bucket of snake oil.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwCgfxvRPlBkdZjvhtScpcmslKk  

FOR MY SERIOUS READERS

On an outing, long ago

This is for the serious student of ovarian cancer – I hope there are a bunch of you out there, faithfully following my blog.  Even if initially you were as ignorant as I was back in 2012, if you have paid moderate attention (and have the power of memory I no longer have!) you will be able to follow this very useful discussion.  I recommend that you try.

https://www.onclive.com/insights/advanced-ovarian-cancer-parp-inhibitors/recommended-approaches-to-treating-advanced-ovarian-cancer

By the way, that same subset of followers should benefit from subscribing to a web site called Onclive.  It mainly caters to professionals, but on registering you can identify yourself as “Patient/Other”.  For “year of graduation” enter anything reasonable – I used 2012, the year I started this blog.  I suspect that, if you join, Onclive will flood you with so much stuff you will be tempted to stop reading this blog.  Please don’t.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Onclive&oq=Onclive&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.5055j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

EXERCISE AND CANCER

Linda and Amanda

The latter now is the mother of my three great grandsons

How time does fly!

If, God forbid, you contract cancer, should you exercise – or not  This link advises you to work up some sweat.  Lots of clinical trials agree.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/cancer-survivors-exercise-guidelines-schmitz?cid=eb_govdel 

As I advised earlier, you may have to cut-and-paste to read this thing.

DESIGNER BABIES? Oh, Lord!

Linda and her wonderful sister, Carolyn

The newest edition of The Economist has an article you can’t afford to miss.  Read it here:

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/11/07/modern-genetics-will-improve-health-and-usher-in-designer-children

(Tangentially, my computer won’t let me open links like this simply by clicking on them.  Instead, I must cut-and-paste.  If you have such a recalcitrant machine, do likewise; this link is worth reading.)

So, this article attempts to bring us up to snuff (an odd phrase) on recent advances in human engineering.  It explains how it now is possible to screen embryos for susceptibility to many diseases.  That being true, how long before (designer babies) we are flooded with blue-eyed blonds with perfect teeth.  Thank the Lord I won’t live to see it.

Well, yeah, those last sentences are way over the top.  Nevertheless, the pace of advancement in genetic manipulation is such that it becomes important for people to take notice, and form opinions.  This article is a little bit heavy, I admit.  To ease your passage, here are some tidbits:

SNPs:  Single nucleotide polymorphisms. This is the substitution of a  single base (T, say) for another (A, for example).  These substitution can be located in a gene (where it may or may not wreak havoc), or in the non-coding part of the genome, part of which regulates gene expression.  It turns out that many human traits are dependent on a combination of a large suite if SNPs.  This can be studied only through….

GWAS:  Genome-wide Association Studies.  As far as I can tell, these involve the statistical evaluation of suites of SNPs in light of human phenotypic variations.  For instance, after analysis of thousands of genomes it should be evident that people like Tom Brady carry a package of SNPs that differ substantially from the package carried by people like me.  It turns out that most characteristics are conditioned by the cooperation of large numbers of SNPs. 

Despite the possibility of designer babies (which society soon  must confront), GWAS and study of things like SNPs ultmately are valuable.  That’s why, when 23andMe,  Ancestory.com, or similar outfits ask if they can contribute your genome to research, you should agree.

By the way, I have purchased a 23andMe kit, but have yet to send it in.  I expect them to tell me that I am northern European, male - and too old to worry about anything else.

PRIME EDITING, A PROMISING NEW TOOL

Linda and her Mom

Before I came along

Well, by this time you know all about the more popular twists and turns of immunotherapy:  PARP inhibitors, CRISPR-Cas9, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes – that sort of thing.  If you are at all like me, you have a vague idea of what they do – but are completely mystified by how they do it.  Well, here is another mystery to add to your list – prime editing.  It’s all the buzz.

Seems that folks at the Broad Institute of MIT, and other folks at Harvard, have devised a precise and delicate way to edit the genome.  Unlike previous CRISPR techniques, which were good for destroying genes, prime editing enables the investigator to fix them, by engineering  a swap of a single base – T for A, say, or A for C, etc.  There are 12 possible ways that genomic coupling can go wrong, and prime editing can fix them all.  Where CRISPR Cas9 is a chain saw, prime editing is a pair of tweezers.

This work has been published in Nature very recently and has created a stir.  There are articles discussing it everywhere you turn.  The link given below is easy going.  I am planning to read around and, hopefully, figure out how prime editing actually works.  Stay tuned.  But, in the meantime Google "prime editing", and see what you find.

https://singularityhub.com/2019/11/05/everything-you-need-to-know-about-superstar-crispr-prime-editing/

FASCINATING ADVENTURES IN PARP-INHIBITION

AN EARLY CAMPING TRIP

Wasn't she beautiful

Faithful readers of this blog (and there are at least six of you – not counting my 176 avid  Italians, of course) will know that immunotherapy is the current big thing in the war against cancer, but that it hasn’t moved the ball much where ovarian cancer, and many other solid tumors are concerned.  Those same faithful followers will know about PARP inhibitors (PARPi) and how they work to stifle cancer by “inhibiting” nature’s way to repair things known as double-stranded DNA breaks.  Since these broken double-stranded things occur as mistakes made during cellular reproduction, and as cancer does a lot of reproducing, inhibiting PARP is a good way to slow down tumor growth.

Well, the article cited below reports on encouraging clinical trials that show that PARPi drugs  used as “maintenance  therapy” extend remission times in OVCA by quite significant amounts – several years in some cases.  It also appears that PARPi drugs may be useful as front-line therapy, as well.  Neither way is it a cure (yet), but PARPi drugs certainly can be useful.  Here are some of the drugs discussed:  niraparib (Zejula), olaparib (Lynparza), and valiparib.  There were three massive clinical trials involved in this research.  More wrinkles are being investigated; stay tuned

The moral of the story is that, if you brush up against OVCA, remember that there are things to do, and maybe trials to join.  Make sure your medical support is up to snuff.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/parp-inhibitors-ovarian-cancer-initial-treatment?cid=eb_govdel

THE LATEST HUTCH NEWSLETTER

HARD AT WORK

The latest issue of the Fred Hutch newsletter is out.  Lots of interesting articles, including:

A tricky new way to make HIV vaccine

More on diet and cancer

How mutations drive development of cancer

Vaping

CAR-T cell therapy

And much more

TAKE A BREAK FROM TRUMPISH CHATTER!

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news.html

ANOTHER LUKEWARM BOOK REVIEW

BUGS TO DRUGS

Linda and friend, Isle of Skye

A typical virus is, like, small – of the order of 100 nanometers (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter).  That means that a typical drop of snot can contain gazillions of them; and will, if you don’t get your flu shot.

Viruses get a bad press, but there are plenty of good ones.  For instance, there are things called bacteriophages, which are viruses that prey on bacteria, often bacteria we don’t want roaming around our insides.  Like all viruses, they propagate by inserting a copy of their DNA into a cell, where it engineers the creation of huge numbers of baby viruses.  Eventually the cell bursts open (lises) to release a horde of identical hungry virus babies to continue the process.  If not properly dealt with, some viruses can make you very, very sick.  But some, it appears, can be useful.  Possibly very, very useful.

It appears that there are things called oncolytic viruses that – I presume with the proper “engineering” - go out and kill tumors; at least melanoma, in mice.  Scientists at U. Pittsburg are experimenting with attaching a hormone (leptin) to such  predatory virus in order to reactivate “exhausted” cancer-fighting T cells.  As I understand it, these tumor-infiltrating immune cells lose their ability to kill because of the harsh bio-environment of a growing tumor.  Leptin wakes them up and makes them strong again.  Thus the cancer cell gets it two ways.  To quote an old song, “if the virus don’t get you, the T cell will”.  As always, let us hope.  

  

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/oncolytic-virus-improves-immune-cell-metabolism?cid=eb_govdel

By the way: this research was sponsored by an NCI program cleverly known as Bugs to Drugs.  Who sez biologists can’t be funny?

LET'S NOT STIFLE RESEARCH

Linda and her Mom

Borrego Springs, about 2005

A long time ago I wrote a blog about the question of whether or not a gene can be subject to patent.   

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/07/who-owns-your-genes.html

 On the face of it the concept is absurd; maybe one could patent a method to isolate the gene or to somehow mess with it, but the gene itself is found in billions of cells in every human being on earth.  No way can you patent that.

Well, it appears that the issue has evolved significantly since then.  In 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that genes are not subject to patent.  Now it seems that a bipartisan group of congress persons want to reverse that ruling.  From my viewpoint, this a big mistake, in that it inevitably would increase the cost of gene sequencing aimed at dealing with cancer.  In fact, the question arose initially with regard to the well-known BRCA genes.

The rational for reversing the SCUS ruling is not laid out in the link given below.  I wish it were; I would like to understand the reasoning behind such a prima facia bit of nonsense.

But, anyway, we don’t need to worry – nothing is going to happen in Washington any time soon.

https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/06/proposed-patent-legislation-stifle-innovation-harm-patients/

TINY CLOTS OF HARMLESS MUTATIONS

LINDA AND MY MOM, 1982

Dr. Francis Collins, head of NIH, could write about the chemistry of floor wax and make it interesting.  He writes a regular blog; many of you would benefit from subscribing to it.  Just Google NIH and go from there. 

In his current blog (below), Dr. Collins describes some NIH-supported research involving study of non-cancerous pockets of mutated human tissue, using cadavers.  As you almost certainly know, cells duplicate their DNA when they divide.  Since human DNA consists of over three billion base pairs, the chance for error is significant.  We have evolved some clever mechanisms for detecting and repairing these mistakes, but sometimes some survive.  These are what we term mutations.  We all have them.  Lots of them.  And yet we are walking around, in rude good health, living our lives.  Clearly, not all mutations are bad.

The work that Dr. Collins describes shows how some somatic mutations “seed” small clots of similar – abnormal –  cells.  Clots, but not tumors. 

I don’t see a direct connection of this research to our primary goal – to cure cancer.  But I am sure that the more basic bio-stuff we learn the closer to that great finish line we are.  I am willing to pay taxes to further that goal.  Just don’t spend my money on border walls or weapons for Saudi Arabia!

If you read Dr. Collins’ blog (and you should), you might be amused by clicking on some of the internal “blue passages” (links).  They will provide you with a small taste of the world the cancer biologists operate in.  Thank God this stuff is filtered through people like Francis Collins before it reaches the rest of us.

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/06/18/study-finds-genetic-mutations-in-healthy-human-tissues/

Useful molecular garbage bags

Linda and Murphy, the Prince of Darkness

Clemson University is the second largest university in South Carolina, and the hardest to get into.  This does not place it in the top dozen universities academically, however, nor even the top hundred.  You usually associate Clemson with ferocious football teams and pretty cheer leaders, not with scientific research.  Nevertheless . . .

One of the most desired results in the battle against ovarian cancer would certainly be a means to detect it early.  I have written about this many times, but with precious little good news to report.  Thus it is with an internal “whoopee” that I can report that Clemson scientists may have made a breakthrough.  You probably know that cells excrete little “garbage bags”, called exosomes, which they require the bloodstream to eliminate.  Well, these Clemson folks seem to have determined that, in early OVCA victims, these exosomes contain scraps of telltale RNA and other stuff that give the presence of tumor, or even incipient tumor, away.  If so, and if a feasible test can be developed, this would be a huge step forward.  Read their little ditty for the details.

https://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/clemson-researchers-prisma-health-doctor-collaborate-on-development-of-screening-tool-for-ovarian-cancer/

SOME CLEVER NANOTECHNOLOGY

My Linda

Now here is a fascinating article, brought to us by Dr. Francis Collins by way of his NIH blog.  The work he describes was done by some exceedingly smart people at U. Wisconsin-Madison.

First: you know what “nano” means, right.  When used in measurement it means one-billionth of a meter.  That’s, like, small.  For example, one nanometer is about how much your fingernails grow every second. 

A number of times we have mulled over the potential for using CRISPR Cas technology to cure disease.  One significant speed bump in doing this is that the vital package has to be delivered by virus.  As I perceive it, you find or engineer a virus to specifically target a particular kind of cell, making sure aforehand that it doesn’t also carry something like, say, the Black Death.  (I think you just kill it.)  Then you stuff the virus with your CRISPR death machine, and inject it in huge quantities into the blood stream.  This works well for some types of cancer, but it is significantly prone to negative side effects.

Well, the Wisconsin folks seem to have shown that you can substitute nanoparticles for the virus.  They can enclose the CRISPR apparatus in a nanoparticle that is only 25 nm in diameter.  The exterior of the little ball consists of some substance that won’t dissolve in the bloodstream.  It (the surface) also is studded with peptides that will glom onto a particular kind of cell – specifically the ones you are hoping to alter.  Once the little nanoparticle finds the correct cell and becomes attached, it is allowed to pass through the cell wall into the cytoplasm.  However, the exterior of the nanoparticle is composed of something that dissolves in cytoplasmic goo.  The CRISPR apparatus is thereby released, to find its way to the nucleus and do its thing.

Sounds good to me.  Works in a Petri dish, and on mice.  Let’s be optimistic.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwDrHwHHPvwSLqbBlgnC

wkVvdWN

A CANCER-FIGHTING DIET?

                         Linda and Carolyn as little kids in Kalamazoo

'

We eat all sorts of stuff – although, for myself with my newly detected diabetes, I eat (and drink) damned little of what I really want to eat (and, especially, drink).  Our cells take most of the stuff we put on our bodies and convert it into molecules they need to survive; this is called cellular metabolism.  Cancer cells to some extent have special metabolic needs.  Thus, one would think, it might be possible to starve the little bastards to death.  Well, maybe so, as explained in the link below. 

Apparently cancer cells have a powerful need for the amino acid methionine.  We (living critters) essentially operate on 20 amino acids, which are the organic molecules that are strung together to make proteins.  Nine of these we humans can’t manufacture for ourselves, hence must acquire from food.  One of these is methionine, which is particularly abundant in food I like – meat and eggs.  So, now it has been shown that a bunch of poor cancer-ridden mice improved dramatically on a low methionine diet.  So, who knows?  Of course, as you would suspect, more work has to be done.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/targeting-cancer-metabolism-low-methionine-diet?cid=eb_govdel

MAGNETISM STRIKES AGAIN!

On Sabbatical, Evanston Illinois

Back in the days when I first got into rock, earth and paleo-magnetism I went to a meeting where a guy put magnetotaxic bacteria through their tricks.  It just had been discovered that a certain type of bacteria secreted magnetic particles – the mineral magnetite, I think – inside their cell walls.  They used these little particles to interact with the earth’s magnetic field – to deduce the direction of “down”.  It appears that their source of nutrition was stuff that was found at the bottom of murky ponds.  If you reversed their polarity they would turn around and swim UP.  It was pretty amusing, watching the poor little devils swim frantically in one direction, then suddenly whip around and wiggle in the opposite path.  I remember I thought it was kind of mean.

Well, it seems that these little magnetic creatures may have some use in medicine.  Specifically, they can be used to guide cancer-lethal nanoparticles to where they can do some good, by fiddling with an external magnetic field.  Sounds like it might work.

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/09/12/teaming-magnetic-bacteria-with-

nanoparticles-for-better-drug-delivery/

I wrote about another use of magnetism in oncology recently:

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2019/08/cancer-death-by-magnetism.html

SOME BAD BUGS

Linda and Viv Hailwood

on a beautiful hike, in the Yorkshire Dales

This has little to do with ovarian cancer, but it reports a potentially important advance in medical knowledge, so I thought I would share it.

You probably are aware that the human body is host to literally trillions of little critters – microbes, often bacteria – that together play an important role in how we function.  I have written about such stuff several times, beginning five years ago with this masterful essay:

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/11/microbes-maketh-man.html

Since that time there has been considerable interest in our microbiome; in fact, NIH has given it its own Human Microbiome Project, some results of which Dr. Collins, NIH Director, writes about in the link given below.

Dr. Collins article concerns Parkinson’s disease.  Apparently there is no cure (as yet) for Parkinson’s, but a drug called L-dopa can relieve its symptoms.  However, L-dopa doesn’t work well for everyone.  It turns out that some people have a gut bacterium, with the pleasing name Enterococcus faecalis, which consumes L-dopa.  For such folks the standard treatment for Parkinson’s doesn’t work.  Naturally, the diligent folks at NIH are working on a way to frustrate E. faecalis.  Bless their efforts

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/06/25/gut-dwelling-bacterium-consumes-parkinsons-drug/

TYPES OF OVCA

Linda and friend, on Santorini

This is a brief, simple discussion of the types of ovarian cancer, and their symptoms.  Every woman under the age of 90 should read it.

https://news.yahoo.com/3-main-types-ovarian-cancer-212823727.html

ANGIOGENESIS AND MICRO RNA

Linda at the end of a very hard hike

I have long been interested in these things called Micro RNA.  In fact, I wrote about them seven years ago:

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2012/06/microrna-potential-break-through-or.html

At the time I seem to have hoped that they might provide a means to swiftly eradicate ovarian cancer.  Well, of course, they didn’t.  But now arrives welcome news of a promising miRNA study.  Before you read about it, you might profit by reading the link above, to brush up on your basic biology.

Well, anyway, some diligent researchers in Virginia seem to have shown that a certain miRNA has the welcome property of stifling angiogenesis in tumors.  Angiogenesis, as you will recall, is the process of growing blood vessels, needed to allow new tissue to survive.  As tumors by definition are fast-growing blobs of tissue, they have a great need for efficient angiogenesis.  A particular brand of miRNA appears to deny them that.  Read about it in Dr. Collins’ NIH blog:

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2019/09/05/using-microrna-to-starve-a-tumor/

PAIN

Linda in a happy time

One of the thoroughly detestable attributes of cancer is that often it – and  therapy designed to cure it – come complete with considerable pain.  Bone pain is distressingly common, as is mouth pain associated with oral cancer.  Another unwanted complication is chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.  The world would be significantly better off without these unpleasant realities.

Well, medical science is making good progress in understanding the nuts and bolts of pain, and dealing with it.  The opioid epidemic has set back progress significantly, however.

Anyway, read this little NCI summary. It is easy going, and informative.   God grant that for you it turns out to be useless information.

I think Linda’s long battle with ovarian cancer was relatively pain-free, but I can’t be absolutely sure.  She was so deeply conscious of the feelings of her care-givers….  And she was so damned brave!

God, how I hate cancer.  Especially ovarian!

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/cancer-pain-new-approaches?cid=eb_govdel

DON'T EAT ME!

Linda and Carolyn in Split Mountain

When I first got into this business of studying, writing about, and puzzling over cancer I had some naïve ideas (and still do, I’m sure).  For one thing, I was satisfied with the notion that our immune system gives cancer a pass, because it is “self”.  I had no idea how that occurred; that is, how a cell goes about signaling “I’m harmless!  Don’t eat me!

  

Well, it turns out that – cancer cells, at least – turn this trick by displaying all sorts of molecules on their exterior.  Our innate immune system has these big, ugly bug-eaters, called macrophages, circulating around looking for something “foreign” to engulf and eat.  However, cancer cells (this study involves ovarian cancer and triple-negative breast cancer) display on their surfaces proteins (CD24, CD47) that holler out “don’t eat me!”.  Some smart people at Stanford have hit on a method to make these proteins ineffective.  Good for them!

As you might have guessed, this is another wrinkle in the burgeoning field of immunotherapy.

Read the article.. It’s long, but easy going and interesting.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/cd24-immunotherapy-target?cid=eb_govdel

LINDA'S 74th

Linda at three

Tomorrow, August 30th, would have been Linda’s 74^th birthday.  It seems as though I miss her more with each passing year.  Oh, the quilts she would have made and the friends she would have nurtured!  Never fail to do whatever you can to eradicate ovarian cancer.

http://engage.fredhutch.org/site/TR/PersonalFundraisingPages/General?px=1148821&pg=personal&fr_id=1573

CANCER DEATH BY MAGNETISM

Linda with unknown baby

If you take a piece of iron and stick it in an alternating electrical field it will get hot; If you had paid attention in high school physics class you would know why.  It turns out that you can kill cancer cells by injecting them with magnetizable clusters of nanoparticles – and then turning on the a.c. (alternating current, not air conditioning!).  Once the cancer cells reach a temperature of 100⁰ F, they croak.  That’s pretty cool, in more ways than one – heck, your normal body temperature is already 98.6⁰F.  (I am beginning to mis-understand this article already.  Maybe 100⁰C?).

Well, anyway, most cancers can’t just have little magnets directly injected into them.  What is needed is a “systemic” approach – put them into the body, then somehow direct them to the cancer.  Apparently some smart people at Oregon State are on the verge of doing this, although how they do it (in mice, for now, of course) is not explained.  So I don’t really know why I wrote this blog.  Maybe the notion of tiny hexagons of magnetic stuff being useful caught my old paleomagnetic imagination.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/osu-rrm062619.php

TELL-TALE BUGS

Linda in Aberdeen

There seems to be a good bit of excitement about this recent British discovery: there is a correlation between ovarian cancer and a certain kind of vaginal bacteria.  Whether there is a causative relationship is under investigation.  At the least, it appears that a simple swab and a squint down a microscope may someday offer a test for probability of contracting ovarian cancer.  Here, read it yourself:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(19)30340-7/fulltext

And, if you flame out on this one (I did), try this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48919985 

CAUTION!

Linda, thoroughly be-catted

Commercial DNA testing services are great fun.  Rub a cotton swab around in your mouth, send it off – and before long you find that you are related to Winston Churchill.  Or, maybe, Donald Trump.  At the very least you may discover that your ancestors were reindeer herders in northern Finmark.  All amusing, and totally harmless. 

Unfortunately, the data provided by these commercial DNA- sequencing outfits also may be utilized for health purposes, which turns out to be a bad idea, according to the British Docs cited below.  The reliability just isn’t there, in many cases.  The moral here is simple; don’t do anything radical and/or irreversible until you talk to a genetics counselor and/or your primary care physician.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/21/senior-doctors-call-for-crackdown-on-home-genetic-testing-kits