WHEN MITOCHONDRIA GO TO THE DARK SIDE

          LINDA HER BIG BROTHER RICHARD

Maybe I’m just stupid, but I simply don’t understand how this particular natural process can have come about.  In my naïve way I always have thought that biological traits survived and prospered only when they offered some procreative advantage.  The operative word here is “procreative”; only things that procreate are able to pass on favorable modifications; if the modification isn’t useful it gets erased.  Now, individual tumors cannot in any sense be regarded as reproducing; they come into being, perhaps prosper – and kill their host.  No babies, no evolution.

So, then, how did the OVCA tumor develop the ability to manipulate the cell – specifically its mitochondria – to defend itself against a “hostile environment”?  That’s exactly what it does, according to new research at Virginia Tech.  See below:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/f-occ010521.php. 

New avenues of therapy opened up by this research are hinted at, albeit somewhat indistinctly.  Let us hope.

In passing, British tabloids are all agog over the news that NICE (their FDA) has approved niraparib for general maintenance purposes - that is, prolonging the period of wellness between episodes of tumor growth, thereby prolonging life and enhancing its quality.  For once we Yanks are ahead of them; under the trade name Zejula, niraparib has been available here for some time.  See below:

https://ljb-quiltcutie.blogspot.com/2019/11/exciting-adventures-in-parp-inhibition.html  

Apparently the problem has been that niraparib was thought to be effective only against tumors caused by a BRCA mutation.  Thankfully, this  isn’t so.