
Potentially Reprogramming Cancer Cells Back to Normal Cells - jaoued
http://neurosciencenews.com/mirna-cancer-cell-reprogramming-2491/
======
escape_goat
This popped up in /r/worldnews yesterday with another source, where
/u/sharplydressedman gave it some context [1].

> I hate to be a buzzkill, but the linked article is very sensationalist ...
> it entirely misses the point of the research published by the Anastasiadis
> lab (pubmed link [2]). Being able to stop or revert transformed cells in
> vitro is not new, we've been able to stop or revert tumor cells for
> decades....

> Tldr of this is that this is unexciting unless you're a researcher studying
> E-cadherin/B-catenin, and means very little to someone outside of the cell
> biology field.

/u/squaresarerectangles provided a link to the original Nature Cell Biology
paper, reproduced in citation [3].

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3idyjg/us_scient...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3idyjg/us_scientists_successfully_turn_human_cancer/cufspjw)

[2][http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26302406](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26302406)

[3][http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncb3227...](http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncb3227.html)

~~~
joe_the_user
Not to mention that killing cancer cells, which can be done in umpteen way in
vitro and in vivo today, seems superior to reverting cells to normal, except
on unusual circumstances.

That is, I assume one would want to have a tumor die rather just stabilize as
it's cell reverted to normal (if that's even possible). Also killing cells on
the outside of tumor seems the most effective way to deliver drugs to the
cells on the inside of a tumor.

(Just speaking from common sense, if there's something I'm missing, I'd be
interested).

~~~
jszymborski
Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1217/](https://xkcd.com/1217/)

------
joeyspn
A novel approach and more good news. We're in the right direction. Link to the
study in Nature Cell Biology...

[http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncb3227...](http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ncb3227.html)

~~~
dekhn
The article is paywalled for me at the moment, but based on the abstract, the
media claims are excessive for what they are reporting.

------
cfontes
Be aware that this only works so far to few types of cancer. It's positive
nevertheless.

I fell like Cancer is an umbrella term for several different little monsters.

~~~
jghn
It is. There are a ridiculously large number of cancers and they are all
different. Even something seemingly simple like "lung cancer" can be divided
into several high level diseases, each of which have their own subcategories.

People who expect a one size fits all solution to cancer will be sorely
mistaken

~~~
rquantz
From the article:

 _“We believe that loss of the apical PLEKHA7-microprocessor complex is an
early and somewhat universal event in cancer,” he adds. “In the vast majority
of human tumor samples we examined, this apical structure is absent "_

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this seems to be suggesting that treatments
based on this mechanism could potentially be used to treat the vast majority
of cancers. You're saying this is wrong?

~~~
jghn
Sure, and they might be right. But history is rich with these sorts of things.
The number of common cancer attributes are legion, e.g. MYC mutations, but to
date it always turns out that the total story is complex enough that it
doesn't matter.

------
mavdi
This is it. This is what we should be focusing on with all the cancer research
funds available. Cancer is just a data corruption in the cell DNA and we have
a few methods of fixing data in the digital world.

~~~
jp555
Cancer can mean different things. Would you consider a viral infection "just
data corruption"? The virus "corrupts" a cell's DNA to manufacture more virus.
Nothing is "just" when it comes to code that's been running for billions of
years.

~~~
baldfat
Cancer is just a bad word for grouping things.

A hard tumor (say bone cancer/osteosarcoma) is vastly different than say
leukemia.

Cancers types are Carcinoma (surfaces of the body i.e. skin), Sarcoma (tumors
that originate in hard or soft tissue i.e. bone cancer), Lukemia (start in the
blood, no tumors), Lymphoma (Hodgkin, Non-Hodgkin), Multiple Myeloma (starts
in plasma cells), Melanoma (skin cancer), Brain and spinal cords, Germ cell
(starts in sperm or egg cells but can be anywhere in the body), Neuroendocrine
tumors (from cells that produce hormones), Carcinoid tumors (slow growing
tumors in the rectum and small intestine and spreads to the liver).

Cancer definition - The bad cells can spread to other areas of the body.
Benign tumors do not spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. -
[http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/what-is-
cancer](http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/what-is-cancer)

------
codecamper
It seems more & more the solutions to the big 3 diseases: cancer, heart
disease, and dementia/alz, involve direct DNA / RNA / Mitohcondrial DNA
reprogramming.

It would then seem prudent to ASAP get your own DNA sequenced. As time goes
on, you collect more & more DNA damage & probably your original DNA becomes
harder & harder to find.

~~~
lqdc13
DNA damage is not a major issue at all. Most of the damage can be "reversed"
by looking at your close relatives since it's single nucleotide mutations.

Right now you can't even get the genome sequenced without gaps for a
reasonable price. The current $1000 genome is 30x coverage which leaves some
parts unsequenced. You can probably infer what some of those sequences should
be, but that would be much harder than reversing potential DNA damage over
your lifetime.

But even if we had the whole thing sequenced, modifying DNA in some or every
cell is definitely not easy and in some cases impossible. Also, all current
methods have all kinds of side effects.

Finally, even if you had some dangerous DNA mutation reversed, it may not help
if a mutation induced cascade already began.

------
jakeogh
Interesting talk - Paul Davies[1] on FQXi - The Physics of Cancer:
[http://traffic.libsyn.com/fqxipodcast/Physics_of_Cancer.mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/fqxipodcast/Physics_of_Cancer.mp3)

From:
[http://fqxi.org/community/podcast/2014.10.02](http://fqxi.org/community/podcast/2014.10.02)
(the extended version of this interview is also available)

[1]: [http://cancer-insights.asu.edu/2012/02/is-cancer-an-
ancient-...](http://cancer-insights.asu.edu/2012/02/is-cancer-an-ancient-
throwback/)

------
cryoshon
What this group is doing has been pursued for quite a while, and many people
have laid claim to finally cracking it, so I'm skeptical. It'll be a good
while before this kind of intervention is finished being refined in vitro,
nevermind in vivo.

------
sravfeyn
(Sorry for being naive) What is the discovery of this finding - is it the
Chemistry of reprogramming the cells or a spontaneous way to evolve these
cells back to their original code?

~~~
pazimzadeh
What do you mean by a "spontaneous way to evolve these cells back to their
original code"? The cells' genetic code (DNA) itself not changing, but not
every gene in a genome is expressed in equal amounts or at the same time. In
addition to encoding genes that "do stuff", the genome also codes for helper
molecules which regulate the expression of these "action genes/proteins" in
response to stimulus and environmental conditions. Modifying or replacing
these helper molecules can therefore change the fate of the overall cell
without even touching the main "action genes".

~~~
pazimzadeh
sorry, it's too late to edit but I meant _not expressed in equal amounts or at
the same time_

------
JoeAltmaier
That seems to be a low-utility solution. Miss one cell, and it recurs.

------
mc_hammer
suspect it would go better with a bit of NLP or training of the brain to stop
them from doing whatever they did in the first place that programmed those
cells wrong. :)

~~~
mc_hammer
not sure what the downvote is for, im assuming its because you suspect a
mutagen like pesticide is directly responsible for the mutation that causes
cancer cells to grow. bbbut my government lobbyists and their scientists
recommended eating pesticide sprayed foods for 100 years, because spraying
lemon juice on the foods was more expensive than pesticide. typical hacker
news downvote because its actually a good idea thats not in your college text
books.

------
dang
Many posts of this, including
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10121168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10121168)
and the threads I linked to from there.

We added the qualifier "potentially" from the article's first paragraph.

