Naked Science Forum

On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: xetho on 04/06/2006 00:04:52

Title: Immune System Cancer Theories
Post by: xetho on 04/06/2006 00:04:52
Unlike chemotherapy, which is intended to kill a lot of cells directly, the ideas in this post revolve around making the immune system more or less reactive to the cancerous cells.
I'm not discussing the underlying causes for cancer, since treatment doesn't involve "prevention" - because whatever caused it already occurred.
I don't encourage human testing, which is inconceivable with these ideas. If any of them showed merit after testing on mice or other creatures with immune systems, then I'd consider that avenue worthy of possible advancement.
A bunch of these ideas are overly complicated or could probably be ruled out by somebody with more expertise.

The Reasoning Behind The Theories
1) "Cancer cells are sometimes different enough from normal cells that the immune system attacks them, but the immune response alone is usually not enough to keep a cancer from spreading." -American Association for Clinical Chemistry
2) The disease Lupus, is the immune system attacking healthy cells.
3) Allergies are an overreaction of the immune system.

It should be possible for the immune system to be manipulated into attacking cancer, where it hadn't or where the immune reaction wasn't enough to stop cell growth.

Associative Immune Manipulation Theories
By associative, I mean trying to get the immune system to "misbehave" or become sensitized to something it normally wouldn't attack. Kinda like positive reinforcement or conditioned response.
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1) Lymphoid Organ Stimulation
   A) Injection with virus infected cancerous cells
   B) Injection of cancerous cells with histamine or allergens
2) Injecting the cancerous growth with a virus that the patient hasn't had before.
3) Taking a sample of cancerous cells, exposing the sample to an immunogenic compound and reinjecting it into the original growth.
4) Artificial cancer cell antibodies, generated in an external environment
5) Artificial cancer targeted B Cell stimulation, to generate antibodies without T Cells.
6) Acute Rejection; Transplanting cancerous cells into a different animal, which has it's immune system suppressed. After the cells have grown, the mass is transplanted back into the original donor whose immune system rejects it and hopefully associates the foreign cancer with the original.

Dissociative Immune Manipulation Theories
Working on the idea that immune system is interfering or getting in the way somehow, these ideas focus on distracting the immune system or removing sensitivity to other immunogens. For most of these ideas, in the end the immune system would better direct itself towards the cancerous cells because it's no longer focused on other problems.
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1) Biotherapy; Depressing the immune system and exposing the cancerous cells to a virus or bacteria that specifically attacks the targeted cells. The same idea as chemotherapy, except using something biological to kill the cells. Keeping the immune system from responding well allows the other disease to spread.
2) General overstimulating of the immune system, followed by a complete withdrawl from the original stimulus, and substitution with a substance that stimulates B Cells to continue producing antibodies. Those B Cells may become defective and produce antibodies that either do nothing or start randomly targeting healthy cells; ideally the cancer.
3) Allergy Vaccine; Stimulation of the immune system for a long time, with a broad variety of immunogenic compounds that the subject is sensitized to. An attempt to cause something that was immunogenic to become ignored by the immune system.

"The meaning of life is growth"