"Jason's heart was strong within him, and he thought that with the help of the bright-eyed youths around and with the help of those who would come to him at the word of the voyage, he would bring the Golden Fleece to Iolcus and make famous for all time his own name."
All across the world researchers are continuously conducting experiments in an attempt to get cancerous tumors to do one or more of the following:
a. commit suicide (by the process known as apoptosis, although a vicious six-foot drop from a wooden scaffold wouldn't bring any tears to my eyes).
b. wound themselves, if not to the point of apoptosis, at least so severely that signalling compounds (think of blood in the water) are released and attract nearby assassin cells (e.g. dendritic cells - think of sharks closing in) ready to finish the job.
c. fail at angiogenesis, the uncanny ability to influence nearby blood vessels to grow a new supply road into the tumor's rapidly dividing core, thus ensuring it of a secure source of nutrition and oxygen.
d. become docile, losing the Atilla-the-Hun killer instinct that drives tumors to destroy the only home they have ever known - and unwittingly, themselves along with it.
When I read of the advances in cancer treatments it feels as if a ship launched long ago is finally approaching its destination, where the secrets of the evil cell's vulnerability shimmer against a tree in a guarded grove.
These are extraordinary times in this quest. Our understanding of the engine that drives the cancer cell has grown tremendously. Reports come out almost every week with some new insight or maneuver against cancer. Even poets lean over their tablets, writing ambitious paeans to the argonauts of research:
"New discoveries fill the pages of journals each month like an astronomer recording every star in the sky."
"For the first time in decades, the sweet scent of hope has been sniffed just beyond the horizon, and legions now strain against the waves in an attempt to be the first to discover its birthplace."
"The diabolical combination that keeps the mysteries of a cancerous cell locked from human view is methodically being deciphered, one number at a time."
Not being a sailor on the journey for a cure, I wait patiently on the shoreline. After silently watching yet another sunset flame out to darkness I turn and find my way back home, where anxious eyes await news from a faraway land.
Godspeed, my valiant scientists.
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I don't know how you can be so poetic just describing the science and research into cancer elimination, but you do. And that is why we read your blog. Not only for the information, but for the poetry, parables and the laugh-out-loud editorials of rediculous articles that we all read, but you put a great spin on. (sorry grammer).
Right, but not soon enough. It would be nice to also find ways to prevent cancers from ever developing. Something that would increase DNA repair and error reading.
promenea -
Well, a bit of genetic manipulation known as quadripoly(sp.) in the genome could work well. The idea is that we currently have 2 copies of each gene, which allows one to be damaged without loss of function. Hence you need both copies of the gene damaged to lose function, and (to put it very simply), the loss of regularitory function can lead to cancer.
A quadraploid organism has 4 copies of each gene, and so in theory you would need 4 mutations in the same place to 'lose' a gene. That could offer extreme cancer resistance. Of course, there would probably be drastic side effects from such gross genetic manipulation..
There is already a mutation which prevents cancer; however, it does so by making all of the stem cells in the body commit suicide at the slightest hint of damage. This in turn means no tissue replacement and hence extremely rapid ageing. Nature says that it is better to risk cancer at 60 than die of old age at 15.
The sheer complexity of the disease is quite staggering.