The gene that cancer can't live without: A discovery may have just cured all cancer

My daughter is a cancer researcher at the University of Minnesota, so I pay attention to what's going on over there. Unfortunately, she's not a part of this particular team, because what they've come up with may be groundbreaking... the prevention of all cancers.

As cells age, they begin to break down, and at some given point, the body gives them a message that tells them to die. Sometimes that message gets lost or corrupted, and a cell turns cancerous and begins to spread. Dr. Eric Hendrickson of the U of M and Duncan Baird of Cardiff University found that there is a single specific gene that has to be present for that cell to turn cancerous, and without it, cancer is impossible.

Scientists have long known that chromosomal defects occur as cells repeatedly divide. Over time, these defects are linked to the onset of cancer.

Now, Professor Duncan Baird and his team from Cardiff University working in collaboration with Eric A. Hendrickson from the University of Minnesota, have identified a specific gene that human cells require in order to survive these types of defects. (Source)

Now, there are two issues here. First, there currently is no drug that will inhibit this gene, though it is likely that the race will be on to develop it -- whoever patents this is going to be very, very rich. Secondly, it does not kill existing cancer cells, it just prevents new ones from developing, so it's more of a vaccine than anything else, though I suppose that it could be part of standard cancer treatment and would prevent its recurrence.

If you would like to read the published paper, it is here: Escape from Telomere-Driven Crisis Is DNA Ligase III Dependent

ETA: Video of local news story that includes an interview with Dr. Hendrickson and explains the process in layman's terms: U of M research helps solve cancer mystery

Another local news program with a longer interview: INTERVIEW: U of M Researcher Talks About Possible Cancer Study Breakthrough

Cancer sucks. Let's hope that this is the beginning of the end of it.

I'm all for it, but unfortunately it will never see the light of day. Big Pharma and others make way too much money off of people sick with cancer. Sad but true.

It always amazes me what humans are capable of...that being said, cancer is too big of a business for big pharma. One way or another, unfortunately this will probably never go anywhere beyond this forum. Oh, and as a vaccine for the very rich and powerful. I hope I am wrong, but we all saw what happened with Dr. Burzynski

originally posted by: LrdRedhawk
I'm all for it, but unfortunately it will never see the light of day. Big Pharma and others make way too much money off of people sick with cancer. Sad but true.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. An effective cancer 'cure' or vaccine would stop the spread of death that crosses all classes of social structure. There's just as much in it for them. Death to cancer!

a reply to: LrdRedhawk

I'm all for it, but unfortunately it will never see the light of day. Big Pharma and others make way too much money off of people sick with cancer. Sad but true.

Someone will do it -- the team "open sourced" the paper, so it can't get buried. I'm going to check with my daughter to see what she thinks of this and how difficult it is to inhibit a gene.

Unfortunately, if proven successful.. it will just be suppressed like all the other promising treatments / cures.

a reply to: adjensen

Awesome. But since that gene is responsible for repairing broken strands of DNA, what would it mean to not have it? Would this affect human evolution if we all simply eliminated it within a few generations? Then again, if taking it away interrupts or interferes with the telomeres in a fortuitous way... maybe we can find the key to longevity while we're at it in a happy accident.

Even if we can't eliminate the gene, I imagine this will still lead to some amazing progress.

a reply to: adjensen

Cancer sucks. Let's hope that this is the beginning of the end of it.

Indeed!

I read about these sorts of advancements in scientists' understanding of the fundamental mechanisms behind a given disease on a monthly basis but it's exceedingly rare that any of them result in a viable treatment.

What's particularly interesting in this case is that it appears to be something that ALL cancers have in common and that's unusual. Hopefully they're on to something big. In my opinion, a cure is much more likely to originate from a team of university researchers than a pharmaceutical company — as others have noted, treating a disease pays a lot better than curing one.

originally posted by: Cuervo
a reply to: adjensen

Awesome. But since that gene is responsible for repairing broken strands of DNA, what would it mean to not have it? Would this affect human evolution if we all simply eliminated it within a few generations? Then again, if taking it away interrupts or interferes with the telomeres in a fortuitous way... maybe we can find the key to longevity while we're at it in a happy accident.

Even if we can't eliminate the gene, I imagine this will still lead to some amazing progress.

In a normal cell, whever a cell undergoes DNA damage, the damage is either repaired or the cell undergoes apoptosis and self-destructs. However, in a cell without this gene, the damage just gets repaired, but all the indexing, checksums and gene damage guard blocks (*) that are distributed inside the chromosome get all mashed up. Then these would be detected as more damage, and the repair process would repeat. Eventually, what is left would be complete junk, but the cell would just keep going regardless. More likely,

This would just mean the individual is more likely to die from cancer. If those genes are passed onto their offspring, that would affect them as well. All nature cares about is that an individual is able to reproduce and stay long enough for their offspring to grow up. There are several other genes that have this effect, BRCA1 and BRCA2.

ghr.nlm.nih.gov...

In computer systems, memory is like a long string of DNA. When memory is allocated for some use, the computer puts blocks of patterned bytes around every allocated block of memory. Something quirky like 0xDEADBEEF. These bytes are never expected to change or to be used. If they do change, then another process or thread on that computer has overwritten that block of memory. The equivalent of genetic damage. For real-time systems. In the case of any critical system, whenever something like this is detected, the whole computer system shuts down, since nothing can be trusted any more.

It would be nothing short of a miracle if they could/would cure cancer.
But, every time I hear of them messing with genes it reminds me of
the movie, I Am Legend.



I hope they are extremely careful with this.

Big Pharma are going to bury it one way or another and this is the only news we'll hear about it for a long time. It will soon be forgotten and nothing will come of it.

It's such a shame the world runs this way too, big pharma has a lot to be accountable for with cancer.

This gene does not need to get expressed. Something is causing an increase in the expression of this gene, but there are more than one sources of this environmental chemistry. If this gene isn't turned on it will not give us cancer.

There are a few ways to address this.

At least they have identified the gene, that is good. Now they can possibly look at what makes it cause cancer. But they want to make an expensive drug, not keep it from happening.

a reply to: rickymouse

Well, no. We all have this gene, and it's not what causes cancer. It is something that enables cancer, allows cells to run amok. If we can "turn off" this gene, cancer will cease to exist, but it is, effectively, blocking cancer, not preventing its occurrence.

a reply to: adjensen

I think when you alter a gene from a normal state it is also called expressing the gene. Nitrosamines in food and cigarettes dampen the aptopsis of cells, which stops them from dying even if they are mutated. Now there are enzymes that break down these nitrosamines, making sure they have adequate building materials can help to deter cancer. Other compounds can help regular cells replicate correctly to replace the dying ones.

With all the changes in our Western diet, there is little chance of tracking the bad chemistry that causes this to happen on an individual basis. We got a big mess.

I did say turn on the gene though, I should have said turn off. Good thing you caught that.

LIke others have said, thats great news.........

But there is no money in curing things.........

Think about how far back .........when was the last time we actually CURED anything instead of just treated it?

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

But there is no money in curing things………

If you don't have money in prolonging things, there is a lot of money in curing them.

Seriously, what would you pay to get a shot that would prevent cancer, forever? Ten bucks? A hundred?

A hundred dollars times, oh, one billion people who would pay it… a hundred billion dollars.

Something of an incentive, eh? AstraZeneca 2013 revenue: 6.8 billion in revenue

This is old news. Been posted about before. However I am sure they will cure cancer another 20 times before we ever here about any experimental treatments.

a reply to: adjensen

This is great news.

a reply to: adjensen

And how much are they making right now just treating cancer as compared to just vaccinating it? If you vaccinate it people pay for it once.

If you treat it. You get paid returns.


It's simple sales. A return customer is more profitable then a one time customer

originally posted by: LrdRedhawk
I'm all for it, but unfortunately it will never see the light of day. Big Pharma and others make way too much money off of people sick with cancer. Sad but true.

Especially because they make no money off vaccines. Yep. All in cahoots too, so if the small cap companies do it they won't want any money from it. They'd never make money off a cancer vaccine. Dumb people thinking otherwise. Gee whiz.