My “Eureka” moment. A cure for cancer.

[Peter Dow]

I'm not concerned about the organism having a name- we can call it Peter: it will never know. But I'm concerned that it's only defined by having the property of eating cancer cells (and not other anaerobic bits of the body) in spite of the fact that such behaviour would be suicidal.

It is pretty much by definition, non-existent.

No that's not how I have defined the bio-agent's properties. Not at all. You are confusing my description of the clinically desirable outcomes of using the bio-agent, what the approach's goals of treatment in this phase 1 are, with the bio-agent's natural behaviour causing unwanted side-effects which I've always acknowledged. You seem to be refusing to accept that I am acknowledging, have always acknowledged, right from the OP that unwanted side-effects would be expected to be observable and measures must be taken accordingly.

 

Of course there would be an expectation that other bits of the body which are equally as vulnerable to the bio-agent would suffer the same kind of attacks from the bio-agent.

 

The approach would be to expect a tendency for there to be side-effects and to manage the infection with the anti-bio-agent antibiotic drug which is integral to phase 1 treatment so as to reduce the systemic side-effects and local side-effects on particularly vulnerable sites in the body right down to acceptable and tolerable minimal side-effects.

 

 

 

I'm not complaining about the possibility of any of the drug existing, as unlikely as it is. I am complaining that your thinking just saying you wish such a drug existed is meaningful.

 

The analogy given by another poster of wishing there was a warp drive and then thinking that just the wishing means something. It doesn't.

Well let me supply another better analogy.

 

If, hypothetically, I go online to a nuts and bolts website and ask them if they have a nut to fit an old bolt I need a nut for that I can describe the dimensions of and if they don't have such a size of nut already if it is a good website they will accept a custom order from me to make the right size of nut to fit my bolt.

 

The order is meaningful. Of course if it was your nuts and bolts website you'd refuse to do custom orders and you would say - "ah but you just wishing that that size of nut existed isn't meaningful".

 

My wish for a nut of the right size would be meaningful. But it would not mean anything to you maybe because that's the kind of poor service that you would offer. You don't ever do custom orders. If it is not on your shelf already then you don't even want to think about it. That says more about you than it does about me wishing to source a nut of the right size.

 

I'm not asking for a warp drive. I am asking for a pharmaceutical drug which is a chemical equivalent of a nut to fit a bolt.

 

 

As already mentioned, the main criticism of OP is that it lacks specificity as well as novelty. The use of bioagents for cancer control has been under investigation for well over a decade or so. OP does neglect all the issues with using them in a clinical setting as well as their general limitations (e.g. that it only works, if at all on certain types of solid tumors).

OP does not neglect general limitations of bio-agents. You neglected to notice that OP describes 2 phases and 2nd phase (new kind of chemotherapy) works on parts of tumours that 1st phase (bio-agent) doesn't work on.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Peter Dow

[Bignose]

Well let me supply another better analogy.

 

If, hypothetically, I go online to a nuts and bolts website and ask them if they have a nut to fit an old bolt I need a nut for that I can describe the dimensions of and if they don't have such a size of nut already if it is a good website they will accept a custom order from me to make the right size of nut to fit my bolt.

 

The order is meaningful. Of course if it was your nuts and bolts website you'd refuse to do custom orders and you would say - "ah but you just wishing that that size of nut existed isn't meaningful".

 

My wish for a nut of the right size would be meaningful. But it would not mean anything to you maybe because that's the kind of poor service that you would offer. You don't ever do custom orders. If it is not on your shelf already then you don't even want to think about it. That says more about you than it does about me wishing to source a nut of the right size.

 

I'm not asking for a warp drive. I am asking for a pharmaceutical drug which is a chemical equivalent of a nut to fit a bolt.

One major difference. It is known & proven how to make a bolt and a nut. It is not known & proven how to make a drug with the specific actions and attributes you give it. Now, mankind may get to that point some day, but it isn't today. So, today, you need to actually do some science to make that first step wishing meaningful.

 

This actually demonstrates the great improvement made in science & technology over the years. But, someone actually had to do and prove out that science and technology. Drug making is no where to that level yet.

 

Again, the first step does have some meaning; it is good people do think about these things. I've said so since my first reply. But scientifically, the first step alone is not useful here. And I tried to suggest ways in which you could make it more useful -- namely, read up on some of the cutting edge research out there. Write articles that publicize the positive results that merit further study, with the intention of trying to help drive additional funding. But just saying "we need drugs that kill cancer cells" is so vague and so unspecific, it really is meaningless.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Bignose

[John Cuthber]

The problem is two fold.

Firstly, nuts and bolts are manufactured things, bacteria are not.

Secondly what you are asking for is a nut with a thread like this spiral staircase.

http://william-wright.com/2013/07/04/ever-decreasing-circles-at-rbs/escher/

 

Also, the defining properties for that organism are still

1 it eats cancer cells (otherwise it's useless) and

2 It doesn't eat other cells (otherwise it's pathogenic).

Do you agree that the organism must have those two properties?

Do you also agree that they are by far the most important properties? For example it barely matters if the organism is a bacterium or a fungus.

 

If so then you accept that then you accept that those two criteria pretty much define the organism.

 

But I have already pointed out that such criteria are untenable for an organism. It would wipe itself out.

 

That's why I'm saying it's wishful thinking.

You can spend time at the bus stop imagining that the bus will get there soon, but that doesn't affect the speed of the bus.

 

You can imagine some magic potion or bug that kills cancer, just like you can imagine an Escher-threaded bolt- but that doesn't make it real.

Edited October 13, 2013 by John Cuthber

[Peter Dow]

So you had a Eureka moment that you deserve a prize for because you brought someone else's idea to this forum?

No because I brought my own ideas describing a new approach to cure cancer to this and other internet forums and I've been willing to explain my ideas to help get them understood sufficiently by others to allow that new approach to be implemented in due course

 

Since you're not modifying the bacteria because it already exists for the reason you want to use it for how is that novel?

Well the bacterial treatment concept has known limitations, of infection control and only effecting hypoxic tumour cores, which renders typical such treatments a) unpredictable and b) not a cure

 

The novelty of my approach is to explain how a bio-agent treatment can be a) moderated using an anti-bio-agent antibiotic to render the treatment more predictable and b) used as phase 1 of a cancer cure which requires a new phase 2 treatment using a new type of drug I am proposing which would be used to halt normal cell division during the 2nd phase of treatment.

 

It's like, when someone invented the swept-wing jet-powered air plane to fly a lot faster than a piston-engine plane with straight wings, someone like you came along and asked "How is that novel because your plane uses wings and wings already exist?". Yes wings had been around but swept wings with a jet engine gives faster flight.

 

Just because a designer is using existing ideas and building and improving upon them as part of his new design approach, that doesn't mean that the designer isn't doing something novel.

 

Here's the problem, the reason we need a circulatory system is because the majority of your internal system is hypoxic to the extent that cells don't have enough molecular oxygen to use is cellular respiration.

That's not a problem, that's evolution's solution to a problem.

 

So they have no specificity other than 'there's no oxygen let's kill everything'? That seems like it would kill your digestive system way before it killed anything else.

The anaerobic bio-agent would be no more lethal than the multiple species of anaerobes which already live in the digestive tract and they can't even eliminate each other or breach the gut wall.

 

 

This is not a mechanism, at best this is an overview.

 

This is not a mechanism, at best this is an overview.

 

This is not a mechanism, at best this is an overview.

 

This is not a mechanism, at best this is an overview.

 

This is not a mechanism, at best this is an overview.

I am presenting a clear enough overview of the relevant mechanisms for the relevant research scientists, professional pharmacologists and oncologists to be able fill in the details as and when required.

 

 

So your answer to this problem is, 'yeah, it will definitely do damage, but someone else can take care of that'?

There are many medical treatments which require intensive care to successfully complete - organ transplant is one such.

 

Also, how will the bio-agents not kill the internal bacteria? It's a hypoxic environment and they are not targeting anything specific.

Wikipedia - Gut flora

 

 

Bacteria make up most of the flora in the colon[9] and up to 60% of the dry mass of feces.[10] Somewhere between 300[3] and 1000 different species live in the gut,[4] with most estimates at about 500.[5][7][11] However, it is probable that 99% of the bacteria come from about 30 or 40 species.[12] Fungi, protozoa, and Archaea also make up a part of the gut flora, but little is known about their activities.

So those "internal bacteria" in the gut have nothing to fear from the bio-agent which is likely to be simply one of their number conscripted to act as a bio-agent in other parts of the body.

 

However, the bio-agent is not injected into the gut where there are useful flora for us to worry about. The bio-agents will be injected into the systemic parts of the body which are routinely sterile and where and when they are not sterile have a very active immune system pursuing pathogens, killing them, walling them off and so on.

 

 

That might as well say, 'with fostacamiticas drugs' because it has the exact same amount of specificity.

The nomenclature of "Type H drugs" was chosen because H stands for "Halt cell division!". Another useful name for them might be "Growth factor blockers".

 

 

Well, if that were true then naked mole rats should get cancer. Because the currently held idea is that cancer is halted by a control mechanism in the body.

I was talking about those cancer diseases when the body's defences have failed to halt the uncontrolled division of cancer cells. This may not be a true or accurate description of some cancer diseases where the cancer arises not from a failure to control cell division, which remains at normal rates for that type of cell, but rather a failure to control the death of cells via a damaged apoptosis function.

 

I'll go ahead and assume this was a joke, because I'm sure you know that saying growth factor metabolic pathways is pretty much the same as saying cellular division pathways. I'll assume you also know that since I said specific pathways I meant EXACTLY what proteins will this interact with on what SPECIFIC pathways and using what EXACT mechanism. Will it be inhibition of an enzyme, and if so what kind of inhibition. Will you halt the transcription of certain proteins, and if so what methods will you use and what proteins will you halt? etc. etc. etc.

 

Since you know all that I'll assume you are more specific below.

Well I haven't done all that work. That comes later and it won't be done by me alone. I'm just providing the approach and a lot of those details need other scientist and engineers to work out.

 

You know that every blood cell isn't replaced on the same day right? It is a continuous process.

Yes I do know that.

 

Do you expect the patient to be completely cured in a week?

Only for those patients whose cancers have cells which are rapidly dividing, whose cancer cells divide every few days. For those more aggressive cancers the cure is more rapid. For slower growing cancers you have to keep the treatment going for longer, perhaps have treatment on, treatment off weeks, waiting for the opportunity to catch and kill each cancer cell as it divides.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Peter Dow

[John Cuthber]

I take it that you have not responded to my post earlier because you realise I'm right..

in any event this "Ringer, on 12 Oct 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

Do you expect the patient to be completely cured in a week?

Only for those patients whose cancers have cells which are rapidly dividing, whose cancer cells divide every few days. For those more aggressive cancers the cure is more rapid. For slower growing cancers you have to keep the treatment going for longer, perhaps have treatment on, treatment off weeks, waiting for the opportunity to catch and kill each cancer cell as it divides. "

 

would be funny, if it weren't tragic.

 

You can't (repeatedly or continuously) suspend human cells growth for weeks and expect the patient to live.

 

Incidentally, you won't get far trying to pretend that using a sequence of treatments for cancer is a new idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy_regimens

Edited October 13, 2013 by John Cuthber

[Ringer]

No because I brought my own ideas describing a new approach to cure cancer to this and other internet forums and I've been willing to explain my ideas to help get them understood sufficiently by others to allow that new approach to be implemented in due course

 

 

Well the bacterial treatment concept has known limitations, of infection control and only effecting hypoxic tumour cores, which renders typical such treatments a) unpredictable and b) not a cure

 

The novelty of my approach is to explain how a bio-agent treatment can be a) moderated using an anti-bio-agent antibiotic to render the treatment more predictable and b) used as phase 1 of a cancer cure which requires a new phase 2 treatment using a new type of drug I am proposing which would be used to halt normal cell division during the 2nd phase of treatment.

 

It's like, when someone invented the swept-wing jet-powered air plane to fly a lot faster than a piston-engine plane with straight wings, someone like you came along and asked "How is that novel because your plane uses wings and wings already exist?". Yes wings had been around but swept wings with a jet engine gives faster flight.

 

Just because a designer is using existing ideas and building and improving upon them as part of his new design approach, that doesn't mean that the designer isn't doing something novel.

You could use your analogy if you had any idea how phase 2 would work, but you don't. You have an overview of how you think something might work (that would kill your patient). So literally the only thing you brought was an already existing treatment and talk of hypothetical wonderdrug.

 

That's not a problem, that's evolution's solution to a problem.

Really? You won't even try to talk about it in context? FFS man, the point is that the bacteria will be uncontrolled because this wonderous hypoxic environment is the entirety of the human body.

 

The anaerobic bio-agent would be no more lethal than the multiple species of anaerobes which already live in the digestive tract and they can't even eliminate each other or breach the gut wall.

If that were true, how would you expect to cure a cancer of the digestive tract?

 

I am presenting a clear enough overview of the relevant mechanisms for the relevant research scientists, professional pharmacologists and oncologists to be able fill in the details as and when required.

So you're just making stuff up? People here have already tried to help fill in the details that your idea doesn't work very well, and you just repeat that everyone else is wrong.

 

There are many medical treatments which require intensive care to successfully complete - organ transplant is one such.

Yeah, but that transplant has a higher reward than risk factor. Your treatment will kill way before a cancer does, so the analogy is moot.

 

Wikipedia - Gut flora

 

 

 

So those "internal bacteria" in the gut have nothing to fear from the bio-agent which is likely to be simply one of their number conscripted to act as a bio-agent in other parts of the body.

 

However, the bio-agent is not injected into the gut where there are useful flora for us to worry about. The bio-agents will be injected into the systemic parts of the body which are routinely sterile and where and when they are not sterile have a very active immune system pursuing pathogens, killing them, walling them off and so on.

1.) What does the diversity of species in gut bacteria have to do with the fact that your bio-agent kills anything in a hypoxic environment and the gut is a hypoxic environment?

 

2.) People won't have an active immune system because halting cell division has ended in new anti-bodies being produced so your bio-agent will overrun the body

 

 

The nomenclature of "Type H drugs" was chosen because H stands for "Halt cell division!". Another useful name for them might be "Growth factor blockers".

And it would still by meaningless to the question I have asked.

 

 

I was talking about those cancer diseases when the body's defences have failed to halt the uncontrolled division of cancer cells. This may not be a true or accurate description of some cancer diseases where the cancer arises not from a failure to control cell division, which remains at normal rates for that type of cell, but rather a failure to control the death of cells via a damaged apoptosis function.

So it's no longer a cure for cancer but a treatment for a specific type? Also, wouldn't it be easier to force apoptosis? since your drug is hypothetical you should probably go for the most effective thing.

 

Well I haven't done all that work. That comes later and it won't be done by me alone. I'm just providing the approach and a lot of those details need other scientist and engineers to work out.

So you have no idea how your treatment would work? Scientists, engineers, and physicians already have plenty of overviews of viable ways they can treat cancers. What they don't need is someone trying to reinvent the wheel and expecting them to do all the work to see if it is even a viable possibility without so much a doing research on the ongoing progress of the field.

 

Yes I do know that.

 

Only for those patients whose cancers have cells which are rapidly dividing, whose cancer cells divide every few days. For those more aggressive cancers the cure is more rapid. For slower growing cancers you have to keep the treatment going for longer, perhaps have treatment on, treatment off weeks, waiting for the opportunity to catch and kill each cancer cell as it divides.

Really? I can't even respond to this.

[John Cuthber]

"I'm just providing the approach and a lot of those details need other scientist and engineers to work out."

 

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2013-10-02/

[Ophiolite]

Difficulty uploading a pertinent (or perhaps impertinent) cartoon. Will try later.

 

Edit No. 2: John's cartoon is more apt than mine, so I'll not try later.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Ophiolite

[John Cuthber]

Even a bad cartoon is better than most of this thread.

[Peter Dow]

Most of the human body is an anaerobic environment.

"Most" by what measure? By the measure that counts - living human cells, most of the body is oxygenated by the circulations and our cells respire aerobically for the most part.

 

Do you mean the most number of cells, including within the total the gut microbe cells which exceed in number human cells, are in an anaerobic environment? That would be the only measure I can think where your "Most" would be true.

 

The reason large tumors are referred to as anaerobic is not because there is no air there, it because there is limited blood supply leading the cells switching to glycolic respiration. You still appear to be conflating respiration with environment.

I'm not conflating the two but I can re-write any sentence of mine to make that appear more obvious to you if that's what you need?

 

So re-writing the sentence you quoted -

 

I don't see any flaw in the idea that a suitably selected anaerobic micro-organism would thrive, flourish and grow at the expense of all human cells in hypoxic parts of the body.

 

How's that for you? Happy now?

 

 

This is a flawed generalization bacterial infections range from trivial to fatal. You cant generalize that all bacterial infections are easily treated, because many are not.

I understand.

 

Given youre still being very vague about precisely what bacterial agent youre proposing to give the patient a widespread infection of, you cant simply dismiss the impact of such an infection as negligible.

Well to be pedantic I haven't even insisted that the bio-agent in my approach must be a bacteria, as opposed to some other anaerobic micro-organism.

 

What I have insisted upon is that whatever obligate anaerobe is selected it must be selected as one of a pair of phase 1 agents, paired with an anti-bio-agent antibiotic to which the bio-agent is very vulnerable.

 

So the possible impact of an uncontrolled infection is a danger which has never been dismissed in my approach. Rather controlling and moderating the infection is planned for in this approach. No other reasonable interpretation of my OP is consistent with what I have written. As someone with a lot of posting experience in forums I have become accustomed to somewhat unreasonable misinterpretations of what I have written.

 

Additionally, if the immune system can trivially take care of the infective agent, it would be rapidly isolated and eliminated from the body - therefore unable to "seek out" and eliminate tumors.

The difficulty with that claim is the treatment regime would be able to add a sufficient amount and rate of bio-agent to the body so as to make the immune system's job slightly more than trivial because of the sheer numbers of bio-agents that were being added to the extent that the immune system would be unable to isolate and eliminate from the body all the bio-agent before the bio-agent establishes itself in the target hypoxic tumour cores. Once established in the hypoxic tumour cores the bio-agent is protected from a trivial immune elimination by the hypoxic environment.

 

 

This is your proposal, which you assumedly posted on a discussion forum to receive feedback on. You cant arm wave away limitations of the application.

I welcome feedback and as far as genuine limitations are concerned I am happy to acknowledge those though as far as the readers perceived limitations which are founded on nothing more than misconceptions and misunderstandings of my approach are concerned I hope to show that the fallacy of such so-called "limitations".

 

• You state explicitly that you as yet undefined agent will not be engineered.

No I haven't stated that. Either native or bio-engineered bio-agents can be considered. I've even quoted an example of a bio-engineered strain of Clostridium novyi - "NT" strain - as a promising candidate for use as a bio-agent in phase 1 of my approach.

 

 

• The use of an otherwise highly toxic agent in small doses to treat a specific form of cancerous growth doesnt support the assertion that it would work in a generally applied sense at all in fact the opposite. As a similar example, we can also use small, highly targeted doses of radiation to treat tumors. If you applied radiation, or highly toxic bacterial infections, or countless other therapies to the whole human body, you would unequivocally kill the patient.

 

Well the toxicity of anaerobes really depends on them being able to produce toxin and that's a function of the anaerobe having both a suitably hypoxic environment and a food source which they can metabolise into toxin. Simply injecting lots of bio-agent which has a theoretical ability to generate vast amounts of lethal toxin into the body doesn't automatically serve up for the bio-agent an environment in which the bio-agent can make their characteristic toxin in lethal or even systemically significantly amounts.

 

It really works the other way around. The body has to be dead or injured before its organic resources become "easy meat" for the bio-agent. The only easy meat on offer is the hypoxic cores of tumours and yes those could be converted eventually into an amount of toxin which would be lethal if administered in one dose but the approach is to limit the rate at which any toxin is produced by use of the anti-bio-agent antibiotic down to levels which have no toxic effect on anything but the tumours concered.

 

 

Inside the digestive system is actually not inside the human body. That should be covered in an anatomy 101 course.

Then I wonder how your fellow anatomy 101 students will react to your claim that "Most of the human body is an anaerobic environment."? Edited October 13, 2013 by Peter Dow

[John Cuthber]

Peter,

Do you know where the name "Cancer" came from?

It comes from the Greek for crab.

The tumour was often noted to have blood vessels that resembles the many legs of a crab.

So, at best these cancers might be marginally anaerobic.

 

Onthe other hand, you may remember that I posted a reference to gas gangrene.

It destroys legs and arms etc and is caused by this bug

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_perfringens

which is an anaerobic organism.

 

So, muscle tissue is anaerobic enough for anaerobes to grow and at least some cancers- enough that they got their collective name from it- are well supplied with blood and, therefore, oxygen.

 

Do you see how that's a problem?

 

And the answer to

"Then I wonder how your fellow anatomy 101 students will react to your claim that "Most of the human body is an anaerobic environment."? "

is probably, just fine because most of it is, at best, marginally aerobic.

[Ringer]

"Most" by what measure? By the measure that counts - living human cells, most of the body is oxygenated by the circulations and our cells respire aerobically for the most part.

By the measure that I specifically mentioned earlier. You know, that the circulatory system is necessary because the body is hypoxic.

 

I'm not conflating the two but I can re-write any sentence of mine to make that appear more obvious to you if that's what you need?

 

So re-writing the sentence you quoted -

 

I don't see any flaw in the idea that a suitably selected anaerobic micro-organism would thrive, flourish and grow at the expense of all human cells in hypoxic parts of the body.

So most of the human body

 

 

Well to be pedantic I haven't even insisted that the bio-agent in my approach must be a bacteria, as opposed to some other anaerobic micro-organism.

 

What I have insisted upon is that whatever obligate anaerobe is selected it must be selected as one of a pair of phase 1 agents, paired with an anti-bio-agent antibiotic to which the bio-agent is very vulnerable.

You have implied, and stated in passing, that it will be bacteria. Either way, what will keep the bio-agent from becoming resistant?

 

So the possible impact of an uncontrolled infection is a danger which has never been dismissed in my approach. Rather controlling and moderating the infection is planned for in this approach. No other reasonable interpretation of my OP is consistent with what I have written. As someone with a lot of posting experience in forums I have become accustomed to somewhat unreasonable misinterpretations of what I have written.

Then you should probably actually explain things better. If a group of people that have experience in the field of biology are all having similar 'misinterpretations' of what you mean it's probably a problem with the message.

 

The difficulty with that claim is the treatment regime would be able to add a sufficient amount and rate of bio-agent to the body so as to make the immune system's job slightly more than trivial because of the sheer numbers of bio-agents that were being added to the extent that the immune system would be unable to isolate and eliminate from the body all the bio-agent before the bio-agent establishes itself in the target hypoxic tumour cores. Once established in the hypoxic tumour cores the bio-agent is protected from a trivial immune elimination by the hypoxic environment.

Sadly you have eliminated any immune reaction to the bio-agent so you don't have to worry about that.

 

I welcome feedback and as far as genuine limitations are concerned I am happy to acknowledge those though as far as the readers perceived limitations which are founded on nothing more than misconceptions and misunderstandings of my approach are concerned I hope to show that the fallacy of such so-called "limitations".

Again, when the misunderstandings are consistent you should probably rework how you are writing.

 

 

No I haven't stated that. Either native or bio-engineered bio-agents can be considered. I've even quoted an example of a bio-engineered strain of Clostridium novyi - "NT" strain - as a promising candidate for use as a bio-agent in phase 1 of my approach.

you didn't say this "Oh my approach doesn't require "modifying" bacteria. My OP didn't mention "modification" of bacteria to do anything other than what comes natural to bacteria"?

 

Well the toxicity of anaerobes really depends on them being able to produce toxin and that's a function of the anaerobe having both a suitably hypoxic environment and a food source which they can metabolise into toxin. Simply injecting lots of bio-agent which has a theoretical ability to generate vast amounts of lethal toxin into the body doesn't automatically serve up for the bio-agent an environment in which the bio-agent can make their characteristic toxin in lethal or even systemically significantly amounts.

 

It really works the other way around. The body has to be dead or injured before its organic resources become "easy meat" for the bio-agent. The only easy meat on offer is the hypoxic cores of tumours and yes those could be converted eventually into an amount of toxin which would be lethal if administered in one dose but the approach is to limit the rate at which any toxin is produced by use of the anti-bio-agent antibiotic down to levels which have no toxic effect on anything but the tumours concered.

You should probably not grossly misunderstand a simple point when you are accusing everyone else of not being able to understand this area.

 

Then I wonder how your fellow anatomy 101 students will react to your claim that "Most of the human body is an anaerobic environment."?

They should be fine with it.

[Peter Dow]

Type H drugs - Halt cell division!

 

At this time, the author does not know if type H drugs are ever used in medicine or indeed are even yet known to medical or biological science. However, this author does not want to wait for that research to be done but rather feels that a Eureka moment must be seized and acted upon and the time to publish is now.

It appears that what I have referred to as "Type H drugs" and "growth factor blockers" look to be my redundant names for "growth factor inhibitors" (half a million hits on google!) and "growth factor receptor inhibitors". (700,000 hits!). Though I note that "growth factor blocker" and "growth factor blockers" appear to be getting hundreds of thousands of hits now too - I thought I had tried that search term earlier and got nothing, maybe my typo or some problem with google?) Wow, 1.8 million hits for "growth factor receptor blockers"!

 

{Those are hits with the quotes included in the search term so those should be hits for the exact phrase. Sorry but my google links were playing up and I've removed them so you'll have to use your own initiative, perhaps copy and paste the search terms into your search box}

 

Inhibitors / blockers - same difference so I am content to use any of the names "Growth factor inhibitors" or "Growth factor receptor inhibitors" or "Growth factor blockers" or "Growth factor receptor blockers" from now on for this class of drugs.

 

So that's actually very encouraging for the early adoption of my approach to cure cancer because the drugs needed are not as "unknown" and "do not exist", as a class of drugs, after all.

 

That's not to say that all such growth factor blocker / inhibitor drugs which would be needed for the successful adoption of my approach are now available but it looks like some are available and hopefully the rest will be made available eventually.

 

I've found this wikipedia link -

 

EGFR inhibitor - redirecting to - Epidermal growth factor receptor - Clinical applications

 

There doesn't yet seem to be a general Wikipedia page for "Growth factor inhibitor" or "Growth factor receptor inhibitor" or "Growth factor blocker" or "Growth factor receptor blocker". So that's something for me and other Wikipedia editors to think about coming up with. If we can at least start talking in a structured way about this class of drugs then that'll be progress.

[Arete]

"Most" by what measure? By the measure that counts - living human cells, most of the body is oxygenated by the circulations and our cells respire aerobically for the most part.

Do you mean the most number of cells, including within the total the gut microbe cells which exceed in number human cells, are in an anaerobic environment? That would be the only measure I can think where your "Most" would be true.

 

 

You still seem to be having trouble with the fact that glycolysis (i.e. anaerobic respiration) is not equitable with a hypoxic environment.

No one is debating that most cellular respiration is aerobic. However, for that respiration to take place, cells a need constant supply of oxygen delivered to them via the circulatory system. Without the circulatory system, aerobic respiration rapidly ceases. This is because the ambient oxygen level is too low for aerobic respiration to occur. This in turn means that the interior of your body is, you guessed it - anaerobic. That should also be evident to anyone who’s studied basic biology.

 

I don't see any flaw in the idea that a suitably selected anaerobic micro-organism would thrive, flourish and grow at the expense of all human cells in hypoxic parts of the body.

 

How's that for you? Happy now?

 

Well, in combination with the above it has clarified the fact that you’re still having trouble understanding that cells respiring aerobically aren’t necessarily located in aerobic environments. As an extreme example, the multicellular organisms living in deep sea hydothermal vent communities, one of the most anaerobic habitats on earth, still have some aerobic cell respiration. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00394718#page-1

 

Again, most of the interior of the human body is hypoxic (wiki link for basic definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_%28environmental%29) Otherwise you would not require a circulatory system for cellular respiration.

 

Well to be pedantic I haven't even insisted that the bio-agent in my approach must be a bacteria, as opposed to some other anaerobic micro-organism.

 

Well, perhaps not explicitly, but it’s been implicit throughout – for example, the suggestion of antibiotics to control you “agent” infers that the “agent” will be a bacteria.

 

What I have insisted upon is that whatever obligate anaerobe is selected it must be selected as one of a pair of phase 1 agents, paired with an anti-bio-agent antibiotic to which the bio-agent is very vulnerable.

 

 

How will you do this? Bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics is highly variable, temporally and spatially in the same species of bacteria http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/Supplement_2/S114.short. If you could guarantee that your agent would not develop resistance to your antibiotic you’d have solved antibiotic resistance. Given that antibiotic resistance has a massive burden on human health, overcoming this challenge to your proposal would both a) have a massive positive impact on human health independent of any cancer treatment. B) Represents a significant, currently unresolvable challenge to your proposal.

 

So the possible impact of an uncontrolled infection is a danger which has never been dismissed in my approach. Rather controlling and moderating the infection is planned for in this approach. No other reasonable interpretation of my OP is consistent with what I have written. As someone with a lot of posting experience in forums I have become accustomed to somewhat unreasonable misinterpretations of what I have written.

 

 

In your initial proposal you simply state that the patient’s immune system will take care of the “agent.” No mention of antibiotics to counter the infection. As pointed out, simply relying on the immune system would likely fail, as any biotic infection which is easily contained by the immune system doesn’t spread throughout the entire body, and any infection which spreads throughout the entire body rather by definition isn't contained by the immune system.

I also feel that you’re doing an excellent job of demonstrating why “a lot of posting experience in forums” isn’t a substitute for a solid fundamental understanding of the given topic at hand.

 

 

The difficulty with that claim is the treatment regime would be able to add a sufficient amount and rate of bio-agent to the body so as to make the immune system's job slightly more than trivial because of the sheer numbers of bio-agents that were being added to the extent that the immune system would be unable to isolate and eliminate from the body all the bio-agent before the bio-agent establishes itself in the target hypoxic tumour cores. Once established in the hypoxic tumour cores the bio-agent is protected from a trivial immune elimination by the hypoxic environment.

 

Overwhelming the immune system with a massive, systemic infection of an agent which attacks all hypoxic tissue is commonly known as sepsis, and is commonly fatal, almost always leaving permanent, systemic organ damage. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000666.htm

 

I welcome feedback and as far as genuine limitations are concerned I am happy to acknowledge those though as far as the readers perceived limitations which are founded on nothing more than misconceptions and misunderstandings of my approach are concerned I hope to show that the fallacy of such so-called "limitations

 

As has been stated, if your entire audience has a misconception, the most likely explanation is that you are not explaining clearly, or the audience’s misgivings with your presentation are actually genuine rather than misconceptions.

 

 

No I haven't stated that. Either native or bio-engineered bio-agents can be considered. I've even quoted an example of a bio-engineered strain of Clostridium novyi - "NT" strain - as a promising candidate for use as a bio-agent in phase 1 of my approach.

 

To quote you verbatim: ‘Oh my approach doesn't require "modifying" bacteria. My OP didn't mention "modification" of bacteria to do anything other than what comes natural to bacteria.’

 

 

Well the toxicity of anaerobes really depends on them being able to produce toxin and that's a function of the anaerobe having both a suitably hypoxic environment and a food source which they can metabolise into toxin. Simply injecting lots of bio-agent which has a theoretical ability to generate vast amounts of lethal toxin into the body doesn't automatically serve up for the bio-agent an environment in which the bio-agent can make their characteristic toxin in lethal or even systemically significantly amounts.

 

Apologies – maybe it would have been clearer for me to have said “pathogenic” rather than toxic. The point was that carefully administering local treatments with high toxicity/pathogenicity to specific, affected parts of a body, as the C. novyi/radiation example provide, doesn’t in any way provide evidence that the administration of these agents systemically would be effective. In fact, their efficacy is in both cases brought about by their toxic/pathogenic properties - which if administered systemically would kill a patient.

 

 

It really works the other way around. The body has to be dead or injured before its organic resources become "easy meat" for the bio-agent. The only easy meat on offer is the hypoxic cores of tumours and yes those could be converted eventually into an amount of toxin which would be lethal if administered in one dose but the approach is to limit the rate at which any toxin is produced by use of the anti-bio-agent antibiotic down to levels which have no toxic effect on anything but the tumours concered.

 

Well, no. A host of anaerobic pathogens are quite effective at attacking healthy tissue. Even microbes which for the large part, like S. aureus, E. coli and P. areuignosa exist on and around us without causing any damage can become serious pathogens in the right conditions The sole example of a bacterial cancer treatment will cause gas gangrene in the right conditions. You are describing a “bio agent” with a rather remarkable phenotype – the likes of which I would speculate doesn’t actually exist in nature. However, it seems like your proposal, and subsequent defense of it simply assume it will be there.

 

 

 

Then I wonder how your fellow anatomy 101 students will react to your claim that "Most of the human body is an anaerobic environment."?

1. I’m not a student. This fall semester represents the second time I’ve co-taught introductory anatomy.
2. As explained above, the majority of the human body has an oxygen level lower than air. This is the reason you require a circulatory system to deliver oxygen to your cells. If the ambient oxygen level I the human body was aerobic, red blood cells would have no purpose.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Arete

[John Cuthber]

I think Peter has realise that he isn't going to go anywhere with this discussion.

I presume that's why (notwithstanding the site's rules) he's failing to respond to issues raised- like the fact that anaerobic bacteria can, and do cause extensive damage in the body.

 

Maybe I'm wrong in which case

Peter.

Either explain away gas gangrene, or accept that there's plenty of anaerobic tissue in the body.

 

(and then I can start on why the type K and type H drugs will also probably kill the patient.)

 

BTW,

"growth factor receptor inhibitors". (700,000 hits!)"

Unicorns; 8,500,000 hits

Congratulations- you just announced that you think unicorns are real.

[Arete]

"growth factor receptor inhibitors". (700,000 hits!)"

Unicorns; 8,500,000 hits

Congratulations- you just announced that you think unicorns are real.

 

QFT - it turns out the warp drives are more acurrately described as "faster than light propulsion systems" (1.85 million hits on google!)

[Peter Dow]

Simply because you say so?

Not at all.

 

Well, along with a number of other posters who have clearly misunderstood your proposal, I am a biologist by profession. If we are all misunderstanding your points, it is because they are unclear.

Not "unclear" to all professional biologists I trust.

 

 

Again because you say so? Youve provided no evidence that ceasing cell division entirely wouldnt kill a patient before your hypothetical treatment took effect.

I am presenting a sound argument that survival with intensive care would be possible. Evidence requires experiment with those type H drugs which are not all available to block all cell division.

 

The argument would be that if a patient can survive without cell division of each type of cell for a time, then one can reasonably assume that the patient would survive the cessation of all types of cell for a time.

 

Consider the use of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors in clinical applications. The patients survive the cessation of epidermal cell division.

 

I argue that there is no cell type which if it ceases dividing must inevitably cause the death of the patient so long as suitable intensive care is given.

 

You seem to be expecting or demanding evidence of the success of a proposed treatment that it would work - at the earliest proposal stage, before the drugs are all available to test, before experiments with animals have been done.

 

You want evidence before the experiment is done. That's not very scientific.

 

When President Kennedy said "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" the sceptics demanded evidence that those hard things could be done, before they were done. They scoffed at Kennedy because he had no evidence that sending a man to the moon would not kill the man. Now how foolish do they look?

 

We know that even mild reductions in cell division have massive harmful side effects

Your links don't make your point in a way that is useful to me. Perhaps if you were able to copy and paste the relevant sentence or two from your links that would help me a lot?

 

It's a proposed treatment with adverse side-effects, yes, which would require intensive care, of course.

 

Being flippant and condescending is unbecoming. I have not called you any names and taken the time to critique your proposal, without calling it "silly". Besides, if you eventually want to be considered for things like Nobel Prizes, you'll need the proposal to be peer reviewed. You'll be expected to take much more vigorous critique than you'll get on a discussion board considerably more graciously than you have been.

I apologise if I have offended you. I don't do "gracious" at all well. If you want gracious I'd refer you to Condoleezza Rice. If you want a cure for cancer you've come to the right place.

 

Here you seem to have missed the point. Regardless of the lifespan of blood cells, they are being continuously replaced. From the instant you stop their division your patients blood cell count begins to crash. Theyd be long dead before 100 days, even if you only stopped blood cell division and not every organ in the body.

Well the other obvious factor is that blood is the easiest body part to repair or replace in medical practice. Blood transfusions are a trivial medical intervention these days. A patient could donate his own blood before treatment and have it stored for transfusion if that was necessary.

 

It's only the red blood cells that last so long though and the much shorter life span of white blood cells would be more of a concern admittedly.

 

Blood transfusions

 

Chemotherapy, radiation and some diseases such as aplastic anemia and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) can cause unsafe low levels of blood cells. Using donated blood, transfusions are a way to temporarily increase the number of blood cells. There are different types of blood transfusions to match the types of blood cells a patient may need.

 

Many patients get blood transfusions after a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. These could be transfusions of red blood cells, platelets, or rarely, white blood cells.

 

Macrophages dont generally attack cancer cells.

Quite but I was pointing out that the 6 to 16 window suggested by the reference offers plenty of time for the treatment drugs to kill the most aggressive cancers whose cells are rapidly dividing more frequently than that time-scale. Incidentally, Wikipedia suggests a much longer life-span for macrophages of several months.

 

Again macrophage division in continuous - a patient would be long dead before the cell count approached zero.

Well new macrophages could be sourced from monocytes in transfused blood as necessary.

 

Maintaining a completely sterile environment for immuno-compromised patients, let alone patients with zero immunity is non-trivial.

Understood.

 

There are several complications which arise from being immuno-compromised. Ironically, one of those is a highly elevated risk of spontaneous cancer development.

On the other hand, if facing a terminal cancer disease, a cure with risks is worth taking.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Peter Dow

[Arete]

survival with intensive care would be possible.

 

This here is a positive assertion you’ve repeated numerous times – you keep asserting that a patient will not die if you completely eliminate all cell division within their body. You haven’t actually offered any evidence to suggest this is true.

Now,

You want evidence before the experiment is done. That's not very scientific.

 

Is not quite accurate. I want evidence that what you positive assertion above, is true. You pose it as a fact, not a prediction so you should be able to support it, and you haven’t.

It would be somewhat revolutionary if it was. One of the major adverse side effects of chemotherapy is that it slows down cell division. Administration needs to balance this damage, with efficacy. http://www.jci.org/articles/view/9872

So we know that too much chemotherapy will slow a patient’s cell division down to the point where they die. It axiomatically follows that shutting it down entirely would have an even more acute effect.

Your links don't make your point in a way that is useful to me. Perhaps if you were able to copy and paste the relevant sentence or two from your links that would help me a lot?

 

Try paragraph 2 of the introduction of Acharya & Sundareshan, 1984 and line paragraph 1&2 of the introduction of Al-Tweigeri et al 1996.

Both state that chronic damage to organs can result due to the disruption of cell division cause by anti – cancer therapies.

 

It's only the red blood cells

 

I know this isn’t the context you used the statement in (apologies) but the problem is that you’re suggesting a treatment that shuts down ALL cell division in ALL organs. You’d be dealing with a systemic collapse of multiple organs and systems. I’d expect to see evidence that wouldn’t be fatal for a patient before I’d even entertain the idea of trying to find a drug to do it - as such I'm not condemning the "experiment" (it doesn't look like you propose any) before it's been conducted, I'm saying that the premises on which the experiment is based are at best, unsubstantiated and possibly entirely flawed.

Quite but I was pointing out that the 6 to 16 window suggested by the reference offers plenty of time for the treatment drugs to kill the most aggressive

 

Again, we have to take your word for it, and you haven’t even defined the treatment. What treatment will cure the cancer in such a short time? Why do we have a reason for it to exist?

 

 

On the other hand, if facing a terminal cancer disease, a cure with risks is worth taking.

 

If a treatment regime is fatally flawed from the outset, investing in it would be a waste of time/resources which could have been better applied.

So far you proposal requires a patient to endure a system-wide infection, and a complete shutdown of all cell division - and none of the agents to treat any of the actual cancer have been defined. If I was to read this as a grant proposal I’d balk at serious to insurmountable complications a patient will be subjected to, and the vagueness of drugs and agents required – especially the rather extraordinary properties of them, and summarily reject.

To add, that isn’t meant with any offense - summary rejection is the conclusion most ideas in science end up getting – I’d doubt there is a scientist alive whose never had a paper or a grant proposal rejected.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Arete

[Ringer]

Well new macrophages could be sourced from monocytes in transfused blood as necessary.

And without the division of multiple cell types you would die from the transfusion due to opening up the interior of your body to all sorts of infections.

[Peter Dow]

We already have therapies that require the cessation of cellular division - most notably bone marrow grafts, where a person is given enough chemotherapeutic drugs to shut down (i.e., kill off) a cancer patient's bone marrow so a graft will take. This is in no way an easy or safe procedure.

In general terms, I'd expect my approach to be significantly safer than any current therapy which uses chemotherapy (or radiation) to kill all dividing cells in the body.

 

My approach only involves putting cell division of normal cells on hold, not killing off the dividing cells. Therefore the recovery after elimination of the drugs from the body should be very quick, not many months like it can be after a bone marrow transplant.

 

Unfortunately, my approach is not easy because it is not easy to source the type H drugs that halt normal cell division but allow cancer cell division to proceed in character.

 

 

 

The patient can die from his normal bacterial flora, which is nigh on to impossible to eradicate. Whether it is gut flora, skin flora, or intranasal flora, any of it can kill us if our naturally dividing cells (bone marrow cells including immune system cells, and skin cells) are shut down. It can take only a few hours for one of our normal flora to spin a fatal infection.

It's a challenge, especially if the patient's immune system is compromised for months after treatment when the intensive care against infection requires to be extremely vigilant for just the reason you state.

 

The advantage of my approach is there should be no such long intensive care required after treatment, only during treatment.

 

 

 

We have two main systems of rapidly dividing cells in our body. Shutting down the division of our bone marrow and immune system cells would eliminate the ongoing battle it has to keep infection from overwhelming our body. Shutting down the cell division of our skin and mucus membrane cells (the other main system of rapidly dividing cells in our body) would eliminate their ability to function as a physical barrier, which is the other method our body uses to keep our normal flora from killing us.

Correct. Again with my approach that's a battle that is easier to win because the battle is over quicker and the army of medical resources required to wage the battle against infection only need to be deployed on the battlefield for a shorter time.

 

 

 

As well, we have had many people suffer from the elimination of their normal gut flora. Most often this has occurred in patients that had to be on high dose broad spectrum antibiotics during a severe illness or trauma. Replacing their flora can be difficult. They suffer from C. difficile infection, pseudomembranous colitis - both conditions difficult to treat. Even with probiotic bacteria and 'poop' transplants they often don't have a ready return to normal bowel function.

I've often found it curious how big pharma can get away with a claim that an antibiotic is "broad spectrum" if isn't quite broad enough to kill the Clostridium genus?

 

The answer, I would have thought would be to include an antibiotic which is good against Clostridium infections within the "broad spectrum" antibiotic dose in the first place? No? Is that too obvious a solution?

 

 

 

And that's just the infectious risks. Stopping cell division in the bone marrow also leads to rapid development of anemia and bleeding problems, because of the inability to continually make red cells and platelets.

In my approach, blood transfusion, reintroducing stored quantities of the patient's own blood can be done if required.

 

It occurs to me that the stored blood may contain floating cancer cells so it too would have to be treated with the type H and type K drugs in-vitro before being cooled to maintain its shelf life.

 

 

 

In the skin and mucous membranes, sores and ulcers, both very painful, develop rapidly with the cessation of cell division.

Again a problem which is moderated when the patient's skin and mucous membrane cells start dividing again after treatment.

 

 

 

All of these are know risks associated with components of your proposal. You would need to over come these risks for your plan to be considered a realistic option to treat cancer.

 

Clarissa

Clarissa, your contribution has been most to-the-point and welcome. Thank you very much.

 

The risks are real but manageable I contend and whilst not dismissing those risks, the bigger issue for me would be sourcing the type H drugs required.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

Abstract

A new 2-phase treatment to cure cancer is proposed.

 

Phase 1 would use a live bio-agent paired with a moderating anti-bio-agent drug to target and kill hypoxic cancer tumour cores.

 

Phase 2 would employ 2 drug types - firstly a mixture of drugs of the growth factor inhibitor type, some (perhaps most) yet to be developed, would be required to halt selectively all normal cell division but not halt the characteristically aberrant cancer cell division and secondly, conventional chemotherapy drugs would be used to target and kill only the dividing cancer cells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There doesn't yet seem to be a general Wikipedia page for "Growth factor inhibitor" or "Growth factor receptor inhibitor" or "Growth factor blocker" or "Growth factor receptor blocker". So that's something for me and other Wikipedia editors to think about coming up with. If we can at least start talking in a structured way about this class of drugs then that'll be progress.

Update -

 

Wikipedia: Growth factor receptor inhibitor

Edited October 15, 2013 by Peter Dow

[John Cuthber]

Well, I guess, looking on the bright side you seem to have accepted that you can't use anaerobic bacteria.

Let's look at the next one in line: these mystical drugs of yours.

 

You say "Evidence requires experiment with those type H drugs which are not all available to block all cell division." which simply isn't true. There are some drugs that can do exactly that, and those drugs are used in cancer treatment.

Things like the vinca alkaloids and paclitaxel work by shutting down cell division.

And, in a high enough dose they can shut down the replication of more cells than you want.

That's why they are very poisonous.

Here's a particularly tragic case of what happens when they shut down the wrong cells

http://www.smd.qmul.ac.uk/risk/yearfive/casestudies/wayne-jowett.html

 

 

The reason those drugs are used (cautiously) is that they offer some degree of specificity: they shut down cell division in cancer cells a bit more than they do in normal cells.

 

 

Your assertion that "The argument would be that if a patient can survive without cell division of each type of cell for a time, then one can reasonably assume that the patient would survive the cessation of all types of cell for a time."

Is like saying that because the UK could probably get by for a day without cars or without lorries or without bicycles etc then it could get by without any transport.

It just doesn't make sense.

And it depends critically on the idea that you can " can survive without cell division of each type of cell for a time" where "for a time" is nicely undefined.

Sure, you could almost certainly survive for a second, but so could the cancer.

For a day- both you and the cancer probably die.

 

 

So, when you say "I am presenting a sound argument that survival with intensive care would be possible." no you have not.

You have asserted it loudly, but failed to supply any evidence.

You have also ignored the evidence we have: if you shut down cell division, you kill the pateent.

 

You also seem to have missed a fundamental point.

 

If your magic regimen of intensive care saves the patient- it will save the cancer too.

[Peter Dow]

One major difference. It is known & proven how to make a bolt and a nut. It is not known & proven how to make a drug with the specific actions and attributes you give it. Now, mankind may get to that point some day, but it isn't today. So, today, you need to actually do some science to make that first step wishing meaningful.

 

This actually demonstrates the great improvement made in science & technology over the years. But, someone actually had to do and prove out that science and technology. Drug making is no where to that level yet.

 

Again, the first step does have some meaning; it is good people do think about these things. I've said so since my first reply. But scientifically, the first step alone is not useful here. And I tried to suggest ways in which you could make it more useful -- namely, read up on some of the cutting edge research out there. Write articles that publicize the positive results that merit further study, with the intention of trying to help drive additional funding. But just saying "we need drugs that kill cancer cells" is so vague and so unspecific, it really is meaningless.

 

Drugs of the growth factor receptor inhibitor type my approach requires to be used as type H or "Halt cell division!" drugs have already been made, so it's a reasonable expectation that other drugs of that type could be made.

 

It should be very useful for cutting edge medical science researchers and big pharma out there when I explain precisely how my approach can use that type of drug to cure cancer in a different way from how such drugs are typically used today so that their efforts can be directed in the most efficient way.

 

I'm showing them the way and the path to a cure. That means we'll get there sooner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem is two fold.

Firstly, nuts and bolts are manufactured things, bacteria are not.

Oh manufacturing more of the same bacteria which already exists is trivial. They reproduce themselves given a suitable foodstuff to feed on.

 

What's not so easy is to modify genetically a species of bacteria so that you can manufacture a bio-agent that's ideal for a particular application.

 

However, medical science researchers have managed to produce a genetically-modified strain of Clostridium novyi, the "NT" strain to be less toxic for use in bacterial treatments of cancer tumours.

 

Wikipedia: Clostridium novyi - Clostridium novyi-NT - Potential Therapeutic Uses in Cancers

 

 

 

Secondly what you are asking for is a nut with a thread like this spiral staircase.

http://william-wright.com/2013/07/04/ever-decreasing-circles-at-rbs/escher/

No, my expectations are reasonable, for the bio-agent and the drugs my approach needs.

 

 

 

Also, the defining properties for that organism are still

1 it eats cancer cells (otherwise it's useless) and

2 It doesn't eat other cells (otherwise it's pathogenic).

Do you agree that the organism must have those two properties?

Not exactly, no.

 

The organisms under consideration for use as a bio-agent are known as obligate anaerobes.

 

Wikipedia: Obligate anaerobe

 

So it would be more accurate to say the properties of the anaerobe are

• It eats human or other cells or cellular debris in a hypoxic environment.
• It doesn't eat anything in a well-oxygenated environment

Those properties make obligate anaerobes useful for eating those cancer cells which happen to be located within some tumour cores which are hypoxic because the tumours have outgrown the blood supply.

 

 

 

Do you also agree that they are by far the most important properties?

Their properties as stated by me, not you, yes. As stated by you, because you didn't state their properties accurately, no.

 

 

 

For example it barely matters if the organism is a bacterium or a fungus.

No, it matters a lot.

 

Human cells are more similar to fungal cells at a molecular level, unlike bacteria which have taken a quite different evolutionary path.

 

Wikipedia - Antimicrobial - Antifungals

 

This means in general terms that it tends to be easier for bio-medical science to come up with an anti-bio-agent drug which kills the bio-agent selectively but doesn't harm the patient if the bio-agent is a bacteria and not a fungus.

 

So a fungus would be a bad choice of bio-agent for that reason.

 

 

If so then you accept that then you accept that those two criteria pretty much define the organism.

 

But I have already pointed out that such criteria are untenable for an organism. It would wipe itself out.

 

That's why I'm saying it's wishful thinking.

Well it is not so John. You need to think about this a bit more.

 

 

You can spend time at the bus stop imagining that the bus will get there soon, but that doesn't affect the speed of the bus.

 

You can imagine some magic potion or bug that kills cancer, just like you can imagine an Escher-threaded bolt- but that doesn't make it real.

The sort of bio-agents and drugs I need for my approach are real enough.

 

We may not know which anaerobe would be best, we may not have all the growth factor receptor inhibitors available today to implement my approach but the possibility that suitable bio-agents and drugs could be sourced is real.

 

Now even though it is a real possibility that they can be sourced eventually that doesn't invalidate me explaining why they should be sourced as soon as possible, so that we can cure cancer as soon as possible.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Peter Dow

[Greg H.]

Drugs of the growth factor receptor inhibitor type my approach requires to be used as type H or "Halt cell division!" drugs have already been made, so it's a reasonable expectation that other drugs of that type could be made.

 

It should be very useful for cutting edge medical science researchers and big pharma out there when I explain precisely how my approach can use that type of drug to cure cancer in a different way from how such drugs are typically used today so that their efforts can be directed in the most efficient way.

 

I'm showing them the way and the path to a cure. That means we'll get there sooner.

 

So you are planning to explain all of this woo you've come up with, at some point in the future.

 

Now would be a good time to start.

 

Also, I was pretty sure you were planning to let the big pharma companies stumble across this thread by blind happenstance.

Tell you what, let's assume that major pharmaceutical companies have the internet and the staff are allowed at work to browse this forum, shall we?

You know, I'm not a biologist - never had the desire - nor am I an epidemiologist, or an Oncologist. But I do have a pretty well developed bullshitometer. And it's been pinging all the way through this thread.

[Arete]

 

The sort of bio-agents and drugs I need for my approach are real enough.

 

Ok, so what are they?

 

I could suggest designing a oncolytic virus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus) - specifically VSV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesicular_stomatitis_virus) with a transposon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element) that cause apoptosis of cancer cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis) - specifically LINE-1 (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1475-2867-6-13). Oh wow I just invented a cancer vaccine! Guess we'll have to race to that Nobel prize nomination.

 

However, without specifics, such a suggestion is simply a fanciful speculation, and fanciful speculations are worth little.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Arete