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| Boy Genius |
 Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 5:00 am Post subject: Cure for Cancer |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 18
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Hi, I was just reading a mag the other day about cancer and if we'd find a cure for it, but if there was a way to cure it (and I'm sure there is) why haven't they found it already?
Surely you could just take the cell or biological infomation of the cancer virus or disaese and use another virus or bacteria that will fight the biological infomation of the cancer and destroy it? Are you still wuth me guys?
If this could happen, and is true, why haven't they found the right bacterium to fight the cancer cells and CURE CANCER?
So you guys got any suggestions?
Thanks ~ Boy Genius
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| Robbie |
| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 6:00 am Post subject: |
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Forum Masters Degree
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 584
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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Because there's no such thing as a bacteria selective only for cancer cells, how could you evolutionarily account for such a thing. The same for viruses. Cancer cells are generally very similar to your body's normal cells which would make ti difficult for a virus or bacteria to tell the difference, even if it could the pathways involved in viral infection are usually very different to oncogenic pathways. I think you also misunderstood how bacteria cause disease, it isnt always to do with host cell destruction, it is often due to the immune response.
In the cases of viruses which do cause cancer eg human papilloma virus or Herpes virus 8, they are pro-oncogenic because of how they incoorperate themselves into the genome. This certainly is not the key to curing cancer.
There are immunisations being developed for the treatment of cancer however, the first being against the human papilloma virus to prevent cervical cancer but there are treatments to actually treat cancer, not a predisposing virus which occasionally occurs.
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| i_feel_tiredsleepy |
| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: |
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Forum Masters Degree
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 589
Location: Montreal
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HPV is actually carcinogenic because it encodes activators of pro-oncogenes. It's not a retrovirus.
Otherwise, Robbie is completely right. Most cancers are caused by mutations in cell cycle regulators and members of apoptotic pathways. |
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| Robbie |
| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 11:29 am Post subject: |
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Forum Masters Degree
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 584
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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Apologies, yeah that's true... s**t and I have microbiology exams this week!
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There is not enough love & kindness in the world to permit us give it away to imaginary beings.
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| Pong |
| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 1124
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| "Cancer" is a broad class of diseases. Like, try to cure "sports injuries". |
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| DaBOB |
| Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 30 Jun 2006
Posts: 1213
Location: Arsia Mons, Mars
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Yeah, kinda with the rest of y'all here.
Cancer isn't a virus or a bacteria. It's just a cell mutation gone out of control. Generally it is considered cancer when the mutation spreads faster than the body can fight. Anything can cause cancer providing the body is weak enough. Oxygen for example would rip our cells apart if we weren't adapted to it. Most of the time the body eats up the mutated cells and poops them out. Even age can cause cancer (we're not "designed" to last... in fact we're more likely "designed" to die... and cancer is one way of going).
There is lots of research in the field of nanotechnology going into cancer.
Look up "carbon nanotube cancer" on Google and you should find plenty.
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| Tortuegenial |
| Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 1:19 am Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 36
Location: Switzerland
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I agree with DaBob, and these mutations are happening all the time in our body, just that they do not fully become cancer all the time so we are not always affected by them. But apparently there already are 2 ways of curing cancer.
Supposedly the first also prevents future cancerous cells from appearing and it also protects surrounding cells. It is (endo)cannabinoids and I'm not sure about the chemistry of it but data provide these results. It is also pretty convincing. I'm sure there are a few articles on pubmed.
The second actually just came out some weeks ago by some scientists from Hawaii. I'll look for the link and post it. |
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