Scientists glue two proteins together, driving cancer cells to self-destruct

There&#x27;s a decent amount of cynicism in the comments, which I understand. I think this is a really cool and novel study, though.<p>Historically, cancer was treated with therapies that are toxic to all cells, relying on the fact that cancer cells divide quickly and are unable to handle stress as well as normal cells (chemotherapy, radiation).<p>The last couple of decades we&#x27;ve seen many targeted cancer therapies. These drugs generally inhibit the activity of a specific protein that lets the cancer cells grow (e.g. EGFR inhibitors) or prevents the immune system from killing the cancer cells (e.g. PDL1 inhibitors).<p>This mechanism is way more interesting. The gene BCL6 is usually turned on in immune cells when they are mutating to recognize foreign invaders. This process involves lots of DNA damage and stress, but BCL6 stops the cells from dying and is therefore important for normal immune function. Unfortunately, this makes BCL6 a gene that is often co-opted in cancer cells to help them survive.<p>The method cleverly exploits the oncogenic function of BCL6 not by inhibiting it, but by turning it into a guide, enabling the delivery of activating machinery to the targets of BCL6 and reversing the inhibitory effects on cell death.<p>The whole field of targeted degraders, molecular glues, and heterobifunctional molecules is a growing area of interest in cancer research.

All of this stuff is promising, and I hope the diagnostic side catches up as well.<p>Just went to a funeral this weekend for a 40 year old who died of breast cancer 4 weeks after diagnosis at her first annual mammogram.<p>A lot of skeptical people under 30 here haven&#x27;t lived through regularly various cancer diagnoses in their friends &amp; family group that your late 30s&#x2F;early 40s starts to bring.<p>I don&#x27;t have the data on it, but anecdotally I notice that women&#x27;s cancers seem to strike 5-10 years earlier than mens even if they can be caught early &amp; treated well.. Though apparently men have overall worse cancer survival rates.

Same as mountainriver&#x27;s comment. I really find strange how I&#x27;ve been reading news lines over the past years about great advancements in many incurable and chronic diseases (like Alzheimer&#x27;s, diabetes, and cancers) yet after all that time people&#x27;s treatment is not going any better. I&#x27;m not sure whether scientific journalism somehow delivered some unintended messages to me, or we&#x27;re just supposed to experience these great advancements after couple of decades from the announcement.

Inducing ketogenesis whose byproduct is the retention of water and generation of ATP has historically acted as an epiphenomenal method of apoptosis. Survival rates vary but fasting has proven to be an effective method.

Hopefully it can help people with Sarcomas.<p>My partner was diagnosed with stage 4 sarcoma about a month ago and life as I know it has been flipped upside down.

Just like there is a convention in posting headlines for [video], [pdf], etc... should there be a convention for any article related to some &quot;breakthrough&quot; (in typical categories like cancer treatment and batteries capacity) to highlight whether the article mentions theoretical work, petri-dish, mice, other animals, test trial, clinical trial, phase X, a proto, a demo, or some stuff that&#x27;s ready for the market ?<p>All those things have they place in the long run to discovery, but I wish there was a penalty for posting &quot;scientists have done x and it cured cancer&quot; (in a computer model of a spherical mouse of negative mass, that may or may not have been cancer-free.)

Strange: the New York Times wrote about this on July 26, 2023.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;health&#x2F;cancer-self-destruct.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;07&#x2F;26&#x2F;health&#x2F;cancer-self-destru...</a>

I feel like I’ve heard this before, is this something that is actually novel?

I love these headlines

The next challenge is getting the protein in there.

When can this be used to cure prostate cancer?

Wonder if the study is freely available without paywall.

Current SOTA (state of the art) treatment for cancer is:<p>Sequence patient&#x27;s tumor mutanome distribution, create personalized therapy encoding the top N neoantigens<p>+<p>Anti-PDL1 checkpoint inhibitor<p>+<p>mRNA encoded albumin-IL2

This seems too straightforward to be credible? If I was researching in this field surely this is the first thing I’d try?<p>If it is indeed credible … this sounds like the “CRISPR moment” of cancer treatment, sure. And I’m really happy for that.<p>But I will be honest and write what I’m thinking: if this is real then frankly I’m disappointed it took this long. Do we really have our best people working on cancer? I have known so many who died waiting.<p>It seems like there has been roughly the same investment this decade (around $200B) in climate tech compared with cancer research, and yet electric cars and batteries are now a “solved problem” that’s just waiting to scale. The progress with Cancer is noticeably less. Is the money being well spent? Or are we donating $100B-s for researchers and labs to sit on a gravy train making sub tier progress.<p>Here’s a wild theory. Perhaps as a society we built the wrong prerequisites to get into cancer research and we filtered out all the Mozart’s and Leonardo’s…

We got a cure for cancer before gta 6

I am tired of news like this that never gets anywhere. We have a billion way to destroy cells, great. Let&#x27;s get a reliable delivery system working now. While that is in the works, I will stick to fasting and other simple methods of decreasing oxidative load.