OT: 'Moon-shot' approach to truly cure many cancers

[jimbolina]

Do you guys also feel the only way to truly find cures for many cancers is through a 'moon shot' approach to the disease?

It appears the way it's currently dealt with using research primarily funded through pharmaceutical companies and some universities is very limited and compartmentalized, and obviously, extremely profit-driven which I also think is not in our best interest in this case.

I feel the only real way to make profound and meaningful breakthroughs that actually work, replacing this medieval, poison-drug and horrible radiation therapy strategy, will be to handle it very much like we took the challenge of going to the moon.

Have the government in charge, employ meaningful and extremely significant money, share the research and maybe we can eventually actually CURE many of these cancers with genome or DNA-repair therapy.

I realize Senator Biden has recently been given the task which I appreciate, but I can't help thinking this is all really very symbolic, and certainly not on the level we approached the Apollo program back in the sixties.

I just can't stand the way we try to grapple with it now, but I also am well aware it's the best we have at this time. I have deeply personal experience in this terrible matter so I ask this from a very frustrated and saddened perspective.

[Black Dog]

Cancer is not the moon it is hundreds of moons and there may not be one approach that works for all cancers. That said there is some very interesting research on the the use of viruses to kill cancerous cells since cancerous cells have the genes that run viral defence knocked out when they become cancerous. This leaves them with no viral defences. A simple virus that would be harmless to a healthy cell becomes a killer to a cancerous cell. Human trials with some of the viral models are underway. The results with test mice have been absolutely amazing.

More info here (http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-fighting-viruses-win-approval-1.18651).

[sg8357]

Going to the Moon is an engineering problem, sort of like racing.
Man asks how fast will this car go ?,
Engineer says how much money you got ?

Figuring out the science behind the unknown number of diseases
called "cancer" takes a whole lot of time.

[verticaldoug]

Do you guys also feel the only way to truly find cures for many cancers is through a 'moon shot' approach to the disease?

It appears the way it's currently dealt with using research primarily funded through pharmaceutical companies and some universities is very limited and compartmentalized, and obviously, extremely profit-driven which I also think is not in our best interest in this case.

I feel the only real way to make profound and meaningful breakthroughs that actually work, replacing this medieval, poison-drug and horrible radiation therapy strategy, will be to handle it very much like we took the challenge of going to the moon.

Have the government in charge, employ meaningful and extremely significant money, share the research and maybe we can eventually actually CURE many of these cancers with genome or DNA-repair therapy.

I realize Senator Biden has recently been given the task which I appreciate, but I can't help thinking this is all really very symbolic, and certainly not on the level we approached the Apollo program back in the sixties.

I just can't stand the way we try to grapple with it now, but I also am well aware it's the best we have at this time. I have deeply personal experience in this terrible matter so I ask this from a very frustrated and saddened perspective.

Precision Medicine has been a very real area of interest for President Obama for years. President Obama just needed a different buzzword for the new budget to connect with the average 'Joe' so to speak.

It took 13 years and about $1 billion to map the first human genome. (1990-2003). With the advances in sequencing, you are now approaching about $1000 and 3 days. There are many research projects with the NIH, Universities and other research labs working on applications, basic research and methods of sharing best practices. Outside of cancer, I think they now have the genetic map for about 3600 rare diseases.

The next 5 years you will see amazing advances in medicine even without a moonshot.

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There are many very wealthy people (Gates, Bezos, Bonderman etc) who are interested in healthcare and investing billions into the space. Google launched the human baseline project. NHS in GB has the 100,000 genome project, Gates and Bezos are funding a new venture with Illumina called Grail to explore liquid biopsies (faster less evasive detection) etc etc. Bezo's also invested in Juno Therapeutics which is exploring CARs , etc etc

[fogrider]

this is a tough one. you would think there's enough reward that our best minds are working on a cure...but it's not that simple. researchers are trained a certain way research takes time. with current computing power, it's possible to come up with new cures, but that's not allowed.

there are lots of promising research in the works, but something like an 'X prize' with $$$ could call the brightest into action.

[batman1425]

Even with massive monetary resources, technologies like targeted DNA-repair technologies are years if not decades away.

"Cancer" describes at state of uncontrolled cell division but the number of different inputs that goes into defining a "cancerous" vs. "healthy" state for a cell is still not fully appreciated. We have tried to find the one mutation, one cancer link and it just isn't that simple. The "death by 1000 cuts" description is much more accurate.

It isn't possible to model all of these interactions simultaneously in a biological system and there are too many targets to explore even with unlimited man power. One area of interest is to built computational models that can simulate all of these variables simultaneously - but processor power like that is a LONG ways off.

I'm not saying that the model we have currently is perfect - far from it, but solving biological issues like this isn't really as easy as throwing money at the problem.

[batman1425]

this is a tough one. you would think there's enough reward that our best minds are working on a cure...but it's not that simple. researchers are trained a certain way research takes time. with current computing power, it's possible to come up with new cures, but that's not allowed.

there are lots of promising research in the works, but something like an 'X prize' with $$$ could call the brightest into action.

I think that is a bit short sighted. Advances in computational biology have made it possible to examine far more subtile targets in biological systems than ever before. And to presume that the top minds in the field are not the best and brightest isn't fair - or accurate.

[redir]

My aunt just died last week from this disease. I wish they could do something about it. That and Alzheimer. Worst things to ever happen to a person.

[cdn_bacon]

Is there more money in the cure.. or the research. Too many people have been destroyed by this "uncureable" disease.:mad:

[Seramount]

in conjunction with medical research, how about a 'moon shot' approach to lifestyle changes aimed at disease prevention.

a lot of people have horrible diets, smoke, avoid exercise, etc etc...

[Saint Vitus]

Maybe when the day comes that the conservative legislators in this country wake up to science and let go of the legislative stranglehold on embryonic stem cell research, additional meaningful research can be brought to bear on cancer.

[verticaldoug]

Even with massive monetary resources, technologies like targeted DNA-repair technologies are years if not decades away.
..............
I'm not saying that the model we have currently is perfect - far from it, but solving biological issues like this isn't really as easy as throwing money at the problem.

Money never hurt.
There will be no eureka moment, but there should be steady discoveries on a yearly basis going forward for the foreseeable future.

There are enough billionaires who want to live forever, I see them wanting to sequence the 70 or so people who live beyond 110 to look for traits.

Worst case, George Church just turns an elephant into a mammoth.

[batman1425]

I agree, money will certainly help, but IMO, human disease research is not in the same class of scalable progress as something like the space program with regards to the funding input. Read: putting several billion into "cancer" isn't going to make this a non-issue in 5 yrs or 10 yrs time. But as you said - it won't hurt.

This raises another point - that the funding climate for biomedical research is abysmal, and hasn't shown much sign of improvement in the last 5-7 years. It is harder than ever for scientist to keep the doors open - and that is even within a model where the skilled labor (undergrads, grad students, and postdocs) are DRAMATICALLY undervalued. Until we see an administration that puts legitimate (and consistent) money into STEM research and development, progress will continue to be stymied - particularly for the non-commercially lucrative areas - like antibiotic development.

[tumbler]

Rewards are helpful, but don't guarantee results. There are thousands of the best and brightest in our country, and every other developed nation, working on this now. They are funded by billions in public and private grants and are using "current computing power" to search for a cure. The problem is that cancer is not one problem, it is thousands of problems that are difficult to detect, mutate in unpredictable ways, and are difficult to attack without interfering with other parts of the body, especially those where the cancer has invaded. On top of this, you have the problem of testing new treatments. With a rocket, you can go out to the desert, fire off as many as you want, watch them explode, and learn from your mistakes. With human beings, the experimentation process is completely different. So long story short, there are thousands of our best and brightest working on this and billions of dollars going towards it now. More money should be spent and more people should be recruited, but this type of problem (really thousands of problems) isn't simply an issue of money, dedication, or computing power. We are trying to escape death, in a way, and that is much more difficult that going to the moon.

[slidey]

Overly naive approach to an ill-defined problem.

As BlackDog alluded to, the 'moonshot' phrase is the wrong comparison, and achieves little else besides setting expectations high, and giving the lay man a wrong understanding of the complexities of the problem.

[MesiJezi]

I work closely with an organization that develops treatments and is working to find cures for cancer in Seattle WA. They're doing some pretty amazing stuff--"tumor paint" is one of their recent developments. It's a dye compound derived from scorpion venom that attaches itself to brain cancer cells to effectively highlight cancerous brain tissue. The cancerous tissue can be removed with less impact to the surrounding healthy tissue. Pretty cool--and that's just one lab, there's all kinds of other stuff going on.

They do a ride every year to raise funds for research, if you're a cyclist in Seattle you've heard of it: http://obliteride.org/
I'm personally inviting you to come out and join us this year--I did it last year and it was a blast. I'm doing the 150 mile 2-day ride this year.