The Cure for Cancer. (the dumbed down version)

[Deleted member 848]

Basic premise

Kill cancer with a deadly virus (that's curable of course)
Such as small pox, or some other one.


Inject virus either directly into tumor, or into blood stream. If in blood stream, program virus to attack certain proteins only the cancer cells have. Once the virus is inside the cancer cell it will multiply and explode the cancer cell. Your immune system will do the rest.

Warning: side effects are to be expected, such as high fever and extreme headaches.

After about a month, you are good to go. No more cancer. Also, get that virus cleared up after.


Peace to all.

Immunotherapy, retroviral gene therapy, T-cell therapy, and countless other approaches to tackle cancer the way you describe are already in development, and some of them are starting to make it to the market. I'm sure Dala knows more about this, but I talk to cancer researchers whenever I get the chance because I'm interested in tracking medical (and other technological) developments, and there is a lot of optimism right now that most cancers will be a lot more manageable within the next couple of decades.

This is being done lots. A woman in my lab is working with tobacco mosaic viruses with fusogenic components in its membrane that are designed to contain ligands for receptors that are overexpressed in cancerous cells. Gastrin Release Peptide Receptor & Bombesin are the ones we work with. The lab next-door is pretty much 100% a virology & oncology lab.


The problem with designing viral vectors to kill off cancerous cells (through any variety of mechanisms) is the fact that cancer is insanely heterogenous. Even within 'groups' like prostate cancer. With where we are at now, we would pretty much need to personalize the viral vector based on the genomics/proteomics of the given cancer that a given individual is suffering from.

It's definitely promising, but we are years away. T-Cell therapy has also shown a lot of promise-- but again, only with certain diseases/certain contexts.

The biggest challenge with cancer is its heterogeneity-- even a primary tumour in and of itself is heterogenous genetically. What treatments work for one part of the tumour won't necessarily work for another part. It's tough. Heterogenous genetics means heterogeneous protein expression. Heterogenous protein expression can make you viral treatment 100% obsolete.

EDIT: Also if you pierce a tumour (as is done in biopsies) you're increasing the probabilities of metastasis; if you inject into the bloodstream, it's rather difficult to have a moiety on your vector that is able to localize to tumour tissues of all different types of cancer.

 

[Deleted member 848]

This is definitely a part of cancer (virology) that I'm not super familiar with, unfortunately. I work moreso with nanoparticles, and killing cancer with things like si & shRNAs (delivering payloads of these RNA transcripts to cancer in order to completely shut-down their protein expression). It's pretty much where my lab is headed over the next 10-20 years. Using small RNAs has promise.

 

[MVP]

The Pacific Yew has Taxol which is one of the strongest anti cancer drugs. ACE inhibitors were found from pit viper venom. The list goes on and on....

Remember where Penicillin came from?

 

[The Blue Elephant]

Remember where Penicillin came from?

Oh ya. I used to think that was like early days of antibiotics and has since been outdated with bigger and better drugs. I was wrong.

 

[MVP]

And nematodes are successfully used to control numerous pests. Humans are using nature to fight nature quite a lot lately.
https://www.arbico-organics.com/category/beneficial-nematodes

 

[Zulu]

I'm homozygous for the CCR5 Delta 32 mutation, which causes this. I'm also highly resistant to the plague and to small pox.

Butt ya all the jokes.

I actually do research with this mutation of the CD-4 cells. How did you find you were homozygous with the delta-32 CCR5 mutation? 23andme, someone else test you? Also do you know what your ancestors is?

 

[Zulu]

This is definitely a part of cancer (virology) that I'm not super familiar with, unfortunately. I work moreso with nanoparticles, and killing cancer with things like si & shRNAs (delivering payloads of these RNA transcripts to cancer in order to completely shut-down their protein expression). It's pretty much where my lab is headed over the next 10-20 years. Using small RNAs has promise.

Been meaning to ask how your research had been going?

Also for those of you who don't know how Cancer works here is a brief description and why there will needs be multiple cures for cancer.

Cancer is the product of having roughly 3+ regulatory genes in a cell be mutated and not preform as intended. You have two categories of thes genes:

1. Genes that regulate when a cell should divide
2. Genes that regulate when cells should stop dividing

Each of these categories contain many genes that are involved in these regulatory processes. By getting a combination of roughly 3+ Gene mutations you can have many and very different cancers, even with in the same tissue type.

 

[Zulu]

Also the older you get and the more carcinogens you encounter in your life, the greater you chances of getting multiple regulatory gene mutation and therefore Cancer.

 

[RandyForRubio]

Also the older you get and the more carcinogens you encounter in your life, the greater you chances of getting multiple regulatory gene mutation and therefore Cancer.

Isn't it cause your chromosomes keep on replicating, and basically the older you get the higher chance that they screw up? Laymens terms, I know. Or am I way off base?! Thanks doc!

 

[Zulu]

Isn't it cause your chromosomes keep on replicating, and basically the older you get the higher chance that they screw up? Laymens terms, I know. Or am I way off base?! Thanks doc!

Yes, Everytime one of your cells replicate your genome you have a chance of getting a mutation, so the older you are the more times your cells have replicated and therefore the more chances at getting a mutation. Or speed up the process and add a few carcinoges!!!

 

[babe]

In the 70s, sitting in science/medical libraries reading cancer research papers then, I found anecdotal reports of patients who recovered dramatically from cancer while fighting off, immunologically, infectious diseases. Doctors were going "OMG, we're not going to get to kill the patient with chemo because the toxic puss will kill him first." It was either a paranoid panic in the minds of the doctors at the shock of being upstaged by nature, or some astute thinking researcher curiously wondering how the immune system can clean up a hopeless cancer so much better than our mutagenic nucleoside derivatives and other poison chemo agents. . . . . not sure which. . . . .

 

[Doublea]

I actually do research with this mutation of the CD-4 cells. How did you find you were homozygous with the delta-32 CCR5 mutation? 23andme, someone else test you? Also do you know what your ancestors is?

I'm a biotechnology major at school and we tested for it using high res melting in one of my classes. My ancestry is european mainly from England and Wales. My professor was pretty excited because I was like only the 3rd person she's taught to be homozygous.