Cure for Cancer?
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Discussion

e21Mark

Original Poster:

17,485 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
Just saw a new report regarding ECB-46. A molecule for in the Australian rain forest that has been used to cure some forms of Cancer. Just wondered if anyone else has seen it as looked pretty incredible?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/32342411/sci...

Is this just nonsense?



Edited by e21Mark on Tuesday 16th August 09:13

j4ckos mate

3,431 posts

199 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
And never to be heard of again

Im a big believer in there are cures for most things in front in front of us,
its jsut a case of finding them, they get so far, then its all quiet again,
what can you draw from that i wonder?

FlyingMeeces

9,932 posts

240 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
e21Mark said:
Just saw a new report regarding ECB-46. A molecule for in the Australian rain forest that has been used to cure some forms of Cancer. Just wondered if anyone else has seen it as looked pretty incredible?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/32342411/sci...

Is this just nonsense?



Edited by e21Mark on Tuesday 16th August 09:13
Looking at the link to a clinical trial (or what externally appears to be one to my untrained eyes), it sounds plausible - BUUT.

I'm pretty sure things that kill cancer *cells* get some of this sort of hype but then turn out to also kill healthy cells with equal efficiency, and I don't know how to easily figure out if this new substance falls into that only-usable-in-test-tubes category.


Hoofy

80,002 posts

311 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
j4ckos mate said:
And never to be heard of again

Im a big believer in there are cures for most things in front in front of us,
its jsut a case of finding them, they get so far, then its all quiet again,
what can you draw from that i wonder?
Maybe Cancer Research pay for it to be buried so they can keep on chugging.

e21Mark

Original Poster:

17,485 posts

202 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
I had a quick browse and it appears this story pops up every few years, so assume it was a slow news day.

GroundEffect

13,864 posts

185 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
Genetic engineering and immunotherapy will be the big ticket killers of cancer.


AndrewEH1

4,922 posts

182 months

Tuesday 16th August 2016
quotequote all
Clippings of yew trees are used in some cancer chemotherapy treatments funnily enough.

But there's a good video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY which gives some predictions regarding the good uses on future genetic engineering.

Edited by AndrewEH1 on Tuesday 16th August 14:43

j4ckos mate

3,431 posts

199 months

Wednesday 17th August 2016
quotequote all
Im skeptical about most things so please dont take offense
but i don't see a cure for it anytime soon, other than the poor bugger suffering and their families
(which included mine) its just not worth anybodys while

Monty Python

4,813 posts

226 months

Prof Prolapse

16,163 posts

219 months

Friday 19th August 2016
quotequote all
I work for various pharmaceutical companies and Oncology was my focus for some years, the line from both doctors inside and outside the company was always the same. "Cancer shouldn't be thought of as a single illness", it's a group of related diseases with different triggers, and symptoms.

Some can be cured. Embarrassingly I always forget the example I was given, but sometimes you can block simple pathways, with minimal side effects. So you keep taking the pill, you don't get that cancer. Simple.

Others aren't so easy. The causes are multifactorial, in a brilliant lecture we were shown it's akin to trying to a map of the London underground. You need to block some stations, but you need to get access to others. Sometimes this just isn't possible. There is no expectation of a universal cure.

More depressingly, you also need to bear in mind as well, that research goes into cancers that are cost-effective. In commercial, if there is no market for a drug they cannot fund research. Similarly in non-commercial environments money must be spent sensibly. If you are unfortunate enough to have a rare and complex form of cancer, there are mechanisms to encourage companies to develop, but you shouldn't expect a cure anytime soon.

(Incidentally articles like this appear every few months, they're released to increase funding through awareness, not because of their merit. You'll most certainly see another before Xmas.)


Edited by Prof Prolapse on Friday 19th August 15:58

Art0ir

9,423 posts

199 months

Saturday 20th August 2016
quotequote all
Isn't CRISPR the big hope now?

I think I read that last year for the first time more people survived cancer in the UK than died from it.

I subscribe to a couple of Science related mailing lists and the work that university labs around the world are doing in every field of medicine is genuinely astonishing. I think medical care as we know it will be unrecognisable in 20-30 years.

AndrewEH1

4,922 posts

182 months

Saturday 20th August 2016
quotequote all
Art0ir said:
Isn't CRISPR the big hope now?

I think I read that last year for the first time more people survived cancer in the UK than died from it.

I subscribe to a couple of Science related mailing lists and the work that university labs around the world are doing in every field of medicine is genuinely astonishing. I think medical care as we know it will be unrecognisable in 20-30 years.
Apparently so from the video I linked above (their other videos are well worth a watch too).