
First U.S. use of CRISPR to directly target cancer seeks approval - ChefboyOG
https://www.statnews.com/2019/05/02/crispr-targeting-cancer-seeking-go-ahead/
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Funes-
As someone who lives with and takes care of a cancer patient, I'm really
frustrated with how little effort has been devoted to cancer research in such
a long period of time, taking into account that it's been several decades of
misery now for millions of people--and a lot more to come; that's for sure.

Besides governments allocating less funding to research, prevention and
treatment--for cancer as well as other grave ailments--than they could, what
especially irks me is this: negligent practices carried out by big
corporations to which authorities have always turned a blind eye. The sheer
amount of unregulated, harmful practices that has come to define our current
lifestyle is abominable. Radiation, pollution, carcinogenic and generally
unsafe food, hygiene products, food and liquid containers... All factors whose
pervasiveness correlates with cancer cases skyrocketing.

We should all be willing to reflect upon what we're doing to our personal and
collective health, and if our lifestyles are actually sustainable or do
require to be reformed.

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bufferoverflow
There's a LOT of effort going into cancer research. It's just cancer is not
one thing. It's not like HIV. There are many many different types of cancers,
and they are currently treated and diagnosed differently. They are expressed
differently. Many cancers are extremely treatable now thanks to research
(testicular cancer >98% survival rate), while others are not at all (<1% for
pancreatic).

~~~
ekianjo
main problem with pancreatic cancer is lack of detection. Virtually no
symptoms or markers until very late stage.

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tyingq
That's true, though the five year survival rate is still pretty dismal (34%)
if they find the pancreatic cancer early, when it is still localized.

[https://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/detection-
di...](https://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/detection-diagnosis-
staging/survival-rates.html)

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ebg13
It's a safe first step. These patients are guaranteed to die very soon without
a miracle, so the risk of causing a new cancer doesn't matter.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Statistically likely, not guaranteed. I'm already statistically likely to be
dead and resistant to chemo but so far so good. The patients know the risk
though and decades is dramatically longer a time frame than they likely have.
Hopefully this works wonders and can be pushed to other types of cancers.

~~~
achievingApathy
Wouldn't accepting only those that had such advanced cancers though skew any
results? I'm very much in favor of these individuals getting any and all help
they can as soon as possible but I want to remain optimistic about the
validity of the results.

(I can't tell if you meant to imply that you are in remission or going through
chemo now).

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magicalhippo
Just wanted to mention... if you (or one you know) get cancer, once the type
of cancer has been established, ask where it typically spreads to. Monitor
changes in those areas.

A relative got cancer in a lymph node, and got it successfully operated out. A
couple of years later got shortness of breath and back pain. Doctors gave
asthma medication for the breath and physio for the back pain.

After a year of no real progress, an unrelated shoulder x-ray showed spots in
the lung tissue. X-ray technician noticed this and escalated it, and only when
they verified it did we learn that the original cancer typically spreads to
the lungs and bones...

Now in this case, finding the cancer had spread to the lungs and spine a year
earlier probably wouldn't have done much to delay the inevitable, but it would
have allowed them to start pain medication much sooner, making that year less
painful.

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edwhitesell
This is definitely good advice. Also, from my own experience with cancer that
spread: get a second opinion from another oncologist (get a third if you feel
the need). It's your body, it's your life, do your homework.

After all of that, do your follow-ups.

Oddly enough, I'm two years out of my initial diagnosis, sitting in the
oncologist's waiting room for results of my latest scans as I write this.

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ddon
China is experimenting with CRISPR on people from 2016, NPR have an article
about this [1].

It involves using cells from his own immune system, known as T cells, after
they have been taken out of his body and genetically altered in a lab.

* [1] [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/02/21/5853365...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/02/21/585336506/doctors-in-china-lead-race-to-treat-cancer-by-editing-genes)

~~~
AlexCoventry
This is such a great idea. Much more direct than trying to train the immune
system with a vaccine.

~~~
AllegedAlec
We tried something similar with children with SCID [edited] a while back. Many
of them were accidentally given leukemia.

Not saying we shouldn't try this, but genetics are capricious, and we should
be very careful when trying things like this on humans. Plants and test
animals are one thing, but when we're doing trials on humans, there's a lot
more at stake.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080807175438.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080807175438.htm)

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leshokunin
Love this. I really hope they get to try properly. Similarly to giving people
the right to die, I wish people could get full clarity on these trials and
make up their own mind. I hope it works out for them. We really need cancer to
end.

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thatoneuser
This will be very interesting to see. Would this be the first big use case of
crispr?

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inciampati
All throughout biology people are using CRISPR/Cas for endonuclease and
binding activity. A lot of engineered plants for instance are based on this
system.

It is not simple to apply to adults, unless it's by engineering a cell culture
(like T cells).

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yread
Messing with transcription factors? Sounds a bit like shotgun debugging

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teh_infallible
That’s ironic- I was under the impression that CRISPR actually caused cancer,
as targeting a single gene has the effect of altering hundreds of other genes.

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ztratar
Not really sure where to start, but 1) CRISPR's altering doesn't necessarily
only alter one gene, and 2) altering one gene doesn't necessarily alter
"hundreds of other genes" either.

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AllegedAlec
CRISPR isn't as specific as the (popular) scientific literature makes it out
to be. It's way better than most other methods, but there's always a chance
that other genes (or transcription factor binding sites, or any of myriad
other constructs in the genome) are also hit accidentally.

~~~
hobofan
Is that a big risk though? I imagine that for a patient (and with that a
specific genome with specific editing errors) you could extract some cells,
grow an in vitro culture, and test the CRISPR on that? You could then sequence
the altered genome and see how much genes were "collateraly edited" and only
if the result is non-risky apply the medication to the patient.

~~~
AllegedAlec
T-Cells are remarkable tricky to grow in-vitro. Most of them only grow after
presented the particular antigen (for the non-biologists: the part of the
virus/bacteria which they recognise) which they are keyed to. I haven't looked
at the actual proposals, but I figure they'll take T-Cells, use CRISPR on
those directly, clean them off (so you don't accidentally CRISPRize other
cells in the body) and re-inject them directly so they won't die off.

You could sequence part of them before insertion, if you manage not to kill
the rest of the T-Cells with the wildly differing in vitro environment, but by
that point you're playing a numbers game. The non-specific CRISPR action
(called off-target mutagenesis in the literature) is a low probability event,
but if you sequence part of the T-Cells, you could easily miss one with a bad
(read: non-lethal) off-target mutation.

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hobofan
That makes sense! Thanks for the insight!

