Edmonton researchers find a cure for cancer

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Superfraggle

dissentowner's THEORY is that there is a CONSPIRACY to not cure cancer because it would harm drug company revenues. He is, therefore, a conspiracy theorist. Literally.

I never said there was a conspiracy to not cure cancer. I said that even if a cure for cancer is ever found it will never EVER be released for the general public. Hey, every year we hear somebody has found a cure for cancer and it just disappears, funny how that works. Oh yes, overhyped journalism..my bad.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

I never said there was a conspiracy to not cure cancer. I said that even if a cure for cancer is ever found it will never EVER be released for the general public. Hey, every year we hear somebody has found a cure for cancer and it just disappears, funny how that works. Oh yes, overhyped journalism..my bad.

ok. No conspiracy. Just some companies "conspiring" to never EVER let us have it?????????

[Thor]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

I never said there was a conspiracy to not cure cancer. I said that even if a cure for cancer is ever found it will never EVER be released for the general public. Hey, every year we hear somebody has found a cure for cancer and it just disappears, funny how that works. Oh yes, overhyped journalism..my bad.

So I got some flack for calling you a conspiracy theorist, while a whole bunch of us spend time explaining how hiding a cure would be next to impossible and thoughtfully discussing it, now you go back to your original conspiracy theory idea that doesn't at all fit in with the reality of medical science research and how it operates.

Since you don't follow medical research at all, clearly, those stories you hear about are part of the long road of failed hopes of drugs and treatments which usually fail in early stages of testing. Which are then built upon and improved upon. Cure for cancer stories usually come from big placebo, new age idiots who promote some magic diet to cure cancer (not talking about preventative diets that do have major impact on your risks of many cancers), but the science journals never say "a cure for cancer" unless its in the future tense, they deal in facts and reality.

But conspiracy theory sounds sexier, some 10 cackling executives of the top 10 pharmas in the world sitting in a room laughing about how much money they make off of cancer treatments and drugs while millions suffer worldwide needlessly including their own families and even executives of drug companies.

[puckluck]

The ignorance in this thread is outstanding. No results? tell that to my grandma who has had cancer twice and survived with surgery that was not available not too long ago and if not for all the great research scientists do. if she would have had the same cancer 20 years ago she'd be dead right now. What a dumb comment and it insults all the great work people do every day to cure and treat cancer.

And the comment about us being able to cure cancer, but dont because drug companies want to make money on cancer treatments and such actually makes my blood boil. What a stupid, stupid thing to say. A freaking disgrace.

Cancer will probably never be cured, but I think we are doing a way better job at treating it then even 10 years ago. I am very hopeful we'll be able to treat it better in the next decade.

[kerriffic]

I would like to bring up an aspect of the whole cancer thing that has always irked me.

The amount of fundraising that the cancer societys do is commendable, however I am continually frustrated at the amount that actually goes towards "finding the cure"

http://list.moneysense.ca/rankings/c...2=1&d1=a&sc1=0

How is it that the heart and stroke foundation of BC can have 69% of donations go to their programs while the Cancer society of AB is only 42%?

Also directly from the Canadian Cancer Societys website "our fundraising expenses (excluding lotteries) are 32.1%." and "Of the funds directed to our mission work, research receives the largest amount – Last year, we directed almost 40% of these funds – $48 million to fund cancer research across Canada"

http://www.cancer.ca/Canada-wide/Abo...#ixzz1iDSZSJl9

I realize that they also fund other inititives, but as an example "The Canadian Breast Cancer foundations top earners made more than $120,000 last year -- and three of them made between $200,000 and $249,999". The Unfortunate thing is that it is not the selfless reseachers earning this money either.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201...#ixzz1iDVbN5Gf

I would be interested to know from the other CP'ers on here that appear to be more directly involved to know just how much filters down directly to the researcher looking for the cure. One of the posters above alluded to "starving". I was involved in medical research in Halifax in 2004 (diabetes related) and we were constantly almost begging for handouts to continue research.

This is where I can see people get mis-informed opinons and thoughts of conspiracy about a cure because when only a small part of your donation actually gets to the researcher it takes that much longer to perform your research (lab time costs alot).

So NO there is no conspiracy but cancer unfortunately IS a big business!

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by kerriffic

I would be interested to know from the other CP'ers on here that appear to be more directly involved to know just how much filters down directly to the researcher looking for the cure. One of the posters above alluded to "starving". I was involved in medical research in Halifax in 2004 (diabetes related) and we were constantly almost begging for handouts to continue research.

There's generally two sources of research funding for this kind of research: government grants (CIHR, NSERC, NIH in the US) and fundraising society grants (Heart & Stroke, Cancer charities, MS society, yadda yadda). To get the grants, you have to put in an application where it's vetted and assigned a score - top scoring grants get funded, lesser don't. That being said, government grants, even top scoring grants often don't get funded. I don't have a lot of experience with charity grants since I've never worked on things that earn charity funding (no one cares about infectious diseases until you catch them!) but generally one writes a grant requesting the amount of money you'll need to do your work (salaries, reagents, equipment). Whether you get that or not is different.

I suppose the take-home message is that lower % of donations going to research means less grants available, rather than less $.

I know I feel like there's more pressure when you're spending charity money - people worked hard to earn that money for us compared to government grants. That being said, if you don't produce, you don't get your grants renewed so the pressure is huge either way.

(lab time costs alot).

No kidding! Salaries are pitiful but everything else is disgracefully expensive.

[freedogger]

The bad side to drug and cancer research is that companies will only fund research and trials if they can patent it. The patent game in any kind of tech is quite rediculous, lots of misspent focus. At least drug patents do expire, but we still see a lot of research wasted on just trying to reformulate and extend with a new patent.

The time from discovery to market is about 14 years for recent cancer therapies. Sure we need safety and rigorous science but 14 years smells to me like a nice little barier to entry for existing treatments and companies to hide behind.

The above two issues aren't conspiracies, they are systemic problems.

DCA has had to fund a lot of their research out of direct donations, and I feel it deserves more than this. At least the safety of it has been previously established and doctors will not lose their license for treating with it off label. there is a clinic in Ontario doing this.
http://www.medicorcancer.com/dca-therapy.html

[Deuce Bigalow]

Originally Posted by billybob123

If you're really interested, it's a protein called PKR and it's actually the opposite - PKR is sometimes shut down in cancer cells, and reovirus can only properly replicate in cells that have no PKR, so it only replicates and kills specifically PKR downregulated cells.

Now back to your regularly scheduled hockey forum.

Ahhh, thanks for the correction! Either way, quite exciting!

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by billybob123

If you're really interested, it's a protein called PKR and it's actually the opposite - PKR is sometimes shut down in cancer cells, and reovirus can only properly replicate in cells that have no PKR, so it only replicates and kills specifically PKR downregulated cells.

Now back to your regularly scheduled hockey forum.

You and the poster you quoted are both actually correct. It's Ras activation that modulates PKR activity. High Ras activity, low PKR activity.

[billybob123]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

You and the poster you quoted are both actually correct. It's Ras activation that modulates PKR activity. High Ras activity, low PKR activity.

Yes, and PKR is one of the key modules of the anti-dsRNA pathway. Thus - no PKR, dsRNA viruses replicate.

That's about the limit of my PKR knowledge - my PhD was in virology not cancer biology! Signal pathways kill my brain.

[SeeBass]

If somebody can find a list of all the CEOs of big pharma and then check to see if they have lost anybody to cancer. If the answer is that nobody has died from cancer in that group you may have something.

good luck

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by billybob123

Yes, and PKR is one of the key modules of the anti-dsRNA pathway. Thus - no PKR, dsRNA viruses replicate.

That's about the limit of my PKR knowledge - my PhD was in virology not cancer biology! Signal pathways kill my brain.

Life is a signaling pathway

But I again offer this arrogant, unsolicited advice (because, as is evident on these boards, that's the kinda jerk I am):

ONCY is a bad investment. In the words of Monty Python: run away.

[freedogger]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

Life is a signaling pathway

But I again offer this arrogant, unsolicited advice (because, as is evident on these boards, that's the kinda jerk I am):

ONCY is a bad investment. In the words of Monty Python: run away.

Tell us why please.

[freedogger]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

If somebody can find a list of all the CEOs of big pharma and then check to see if they have lost anybody to cancer. If the answer is that nobody has died from cancer in that group you may have something.

good luck

Brad Thompson of ONCY had cancer in his leg. Wasn't reovirus that saved him, but at least it is personal for him.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by freedogger

Tell us why please.

You mentioned they'd get approval in 2012. The head and neck phase III isn't close to finished, meaning that they won't have the data in hand early enough to package it into the BLA for approval this year. The BLA alone is a minimum 6 month wait for appraisal by the FDA. And given this is the first reovirus, you're also looking at an ODAC panel meeting to serve as an additional hurdle. In other words, just based on time alone your prediction is not possible.

Second, and most important: their efficacy data in head and neck to date is very weak and from relatively small patient populations (groups of less than 20). That makes it a very, very weak proposition to have confidence in the phase III trial being a success.

I follow many of these biotechs as it's practically the only thing I invest in. The ONCY story is the typical of companies with weak drugs. There are many, many better ones to invest in. As a clinical prospect, it's way better than the dca scam run by the U of A guy... but that's faint praise.

[Phanuthier]

Late, and I didn't read much past the 1st page, but 2 things stand out in this article (I actually remember reading about this back in 2007 when I was at UofA)

1. can take up to 10 years for FDA approval... last I checked in 2010, they hadn't been to clinical trial yet?

2. This treatment works on preventing cancer cells from getting power (inhibiting Mitochondria) - this can have a few serious side affects. Similar cells such as muscle endurance can be inhibited by this treatment, so while you can kill cancer cells, you can also have side effects of shutting down organs you don't want to shut down.

Regarding point (2) ... I would assume the goal, after clinical trial, would be to find ways of specially targeting cancer cells.

(I actually got this info from my girlfriend who is a researcher in this field... at least this is what she told me when I showed her this article... can answer any other questions if need be)