Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: Dege on 09/10/2008 03:56:56
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OK, I read about engineering a virus to kill cancer cells and stop when it hit healthy tissue.
my question is what virus would you use to do it and can it even be done?
Would you have to use a specific virus or could it be any kind ?
please tell me what you think.
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I wouldn't use any viruses whatsoever. Cancer cells resemble embryonic cells, so a cancer cell is basically the body's attempt to regenerate damaged tissue - unfortunately, something goes awry.
If you want to know what that something is, try reading Dr. Robert O. Becker's 'The Body Electric'. It will get you to rethink everything you've been taught about cancer. He believes that cancer cells aren't the bad guys - but electromagnetic radiation from things like power lines and cell phone towers is.
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Sorry but I need to go off topic and just post an open rant.
I often wonder why the forum accepts and suffers such crazy people, do they bring anything constructive? Do they engage in intelligent debate?
There are a few things I notice when the persistent nutters join the forum:
There will always be one or two members who take the time to TRY and educate the nutters.
Their efforts fall on deaf ears.
General postings and traffic by established, sane members drops off. Are these members busy or just sick of the madness?
Isn't it time to rename new theories or have a new board where all the crazy posts and posters are moved to?
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I'm not sure I'd want to deliver a known pest to combat another known pest.. I mean they tried that with cane toads in Australia, and that's turned out to be a complete balls up.
"SKINNER
Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
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Yea,
I have long wondered what purpose the virus has in nature. Some bacteria can cause awful deadly diseases and other absolutely necessary for sustaining life, like gastric bacteria.
The virus in contrast seems to only cause problems , but there is a theory that they have a place in the process of evolution
Alan
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Its purpose is to multiply like everything else.
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Madidus_Scientia
Its purpose is to multiply like everything else
I do not agree to me it has no purpose other than killing its host and by this continually committing suicide,
Of course it constant attack on host organism must make the host evolve constantly and maybe this adaption become more able to cope with changes in environment new threats become more invulnerable over time.
Maybe it is something to us it is "there is no gain without pain"
Alan
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Madidus_Scientia
Its purpose is to multiply like everything else
I do not agree to me it has no purpose other than killing its host and by this continually committing suicide,
Of course it constant attack on host organism must make the host evolve constantly and maybe this adaption become more able to cope with changes in environment new threats become more invulnerable over time.
Maybe it is something to us it is "there is no gain without pain"
Alan
Nope, it's a veritable multiplication machine. Should the host die that is an unfortunate side-effect. All a virus does is turn a cell into a virus-making factory.
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BeV
Nope, it's a veritable multiplication machine
There must be a why? behind every organism, Why does it multiply? Did some evil god put it there to be the bane of human existence, it just seems to me to have no purpose in the grand order of things, except make us and other life forms miserable and sick even killing countless millions, why? why? [???]
They are half alive psychopaths
The little evil devil's [>:(]
Alan [;D]
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They don't need a why, they just work because they work, the same as us.
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Not a virus, but I read somewhere that histopathologists discovered one of the main features of cells infected with cancer go through mitosis at a much higher rate than cells not infected. Surely if they used colchicine on cancer then it would freeze mitosis in the metaphase decreasing the spread of cancerous cells long enough for them to be treated or removed.
I understand that colchicine has a very high toxic banding, but it might be worth it if all else fails you know :)
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Not a virus, but I read somewhere that histopathologists discovered one of the main features of cells infected with cancer go through mitosis at a much higher rate than cells not infected. Surely if they used colchicine on cancer then it would freeze mitosis in the metaphase decreasing the spread of cancerous cells long enough for them to be treated or removed.
I understand that colchicine has a very high toxic banding, but it might be worth it if all else fails you know :)
Colchicine was one of the first chemotherapeutics used to combat cancer, and I believe it's still used occasionally today.
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It turns out that Zika virus, which has a predilection for the developing nervous system that leads to microcephaly (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/science-news/why-zika-might-offer-brain-cancer-cure) in infected foetuses, might be very effective for the treatment of glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/could-zika-virus-be-used-fight-cancer).
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There is a possibility today to sequence cancer DNA, or even its RNA. This could allow you to identify unusual proteins that are being overexpressed in the cancer.
If you could engineer a virus so that it thrived in the presence of the over-expressed protein, and starved in its absence, you could eliminate cancer cells which showed this pattern of gene expression.
Some problems of virus therapies have to do with the immune system:
- The immune system could overreact to the virus, causing a dangerous immune reaction
- Or the immune system could react properly, and clear up the virus before it had a chance to kill all the cancer cells.
- Once the immune system recognizes the virus (even from a natural infection), that virus is not useful as a therapy - the immune system would wipe it out too quickly.
I guess if you could get a virus (or any telltale protein) that selectively tagged the cancer cells, the immune cells might recognize the cancer cells as dangerous, and set about wiping them out - provided the immune system didn't go on to attack every normal cell in the body, too!
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I am not trying to change the direction of the discussion, but rather I first need to build some background to answer the question on a novel way.
The cells of the human body all have the same DNA. The question becomes, how do you force a cell to perpetually limit itself to a limited genetic differentiation, even though each cell has so much extra genetic potential? The analogy is having 100 German Shepherd dogs, who are all very skilled at all dog skills. We limit each dog to a single task and not allow any of them to do anything else. Their instinct will be to use their full potential, causing some to deviate from the linear training. How do you overcome this for all 100 dogs?
The most logical answer for the human body, is the brain and nervous system; smart tissue. The brain and nervous system will act as a failsafe for differentiation control; feedback and oversight, so the cells maintain limits. This can be done with ionic signals since potassium and sodium ions have different impacts on water; chaotropic and kosmotropic, and all things in the cell are in dynamic equilibrium with the water potential and potential gradients. Water defines protein shapes and these shapes define activity. If we add a new solvent nothing works since form and function are not conductive to activity.
Is cancer caused by damage to aspects of the local nervous control system? If a cell lost is local and unique nervous tissue interface, it can go renegade and start using its genetic potential. Other logical results of local nervous tissue damage would be things like excessive cellular division, beyond the normal control system maintenance schedule.
Has anyone done work with using nervous tissue splicing and induced branching into cancer cells, to help differentiate the cancer, so it can be more receptive to the virus of your choice? The brain has a back up copy of what the body should be. We can speed up the process. Neurons do not divide beyond a certain point since this would impact the backup copy.
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The fates of cells within the human body are controlled with exceptional precision and success, at least for the majority of the time. If the body were a country, it would have 37 trillion citizens, all of them obeying the rules for almost their entire lives and everyone contributing to the economic good of the whole. That's population compliance that not even North Korean big-mouth wannabe, piglet and tyrant Kim Jong Un can rival!
It's achieved at the level of our cells by endowing cells with a very powerful sequence of management layers that impose numerous checkpoints in cellular activity, as well as a built in death programme and an obligatory senescence when cells exceed a certain number of divisions...
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Some sort of phage on E. coli probably, but only if chemo and radiation therapies are not working.