hmmm, just thinking out loud

[Bill]

After reading Lani's post regarding fasting before chemo., and the comment by Fullofbeans regarding the metabolisms of mice and men, and posts by RB and others, I got to thinking. I haven't had much time lately, but one of my interests has always been physics. In particular, on the one hand, you have the studies of Quantum Mechanics (subatomic particles and energies) and on the other hand, you have Einstein's theories and other physicists/mathemeticians studying the motion of larger planetary bodies and the "laws" governing the movement of those bodies and large expenditures of energies. I'm not an expert, but for years those in this field have been seeking the "Grand Unified Theory", in other words, a formula or formulae that can rectify, or unify the "laws" governing the movements of large bodies versus subatomic bodies. Right now, they don't, if I am correct in understanding. It's thought among alot of physicists right now that they have enough data collected and it's just a matter of looking at the data and/or formulae differently to solve the puzzle. Some are waiting for the next Einstein. Having said all that, I feel that the cure for cancer is right in front of us, but all of the pieces of the puzzle need to be put together. We are so close. The answer is probably there, right now, but we need to find "the Grand Unified Theory of Cancer". I'd like to hear your comments. I know we all feel like we are close, but do any of you feel as if all of the data is there right now, only it needs to be studied as a whole?

[lilyecuadorian]

ok yes I agree with you ...but make me desperate too many things" cooking and really, I mean on reality everything go or looks so slow slow ...and times go go and ??
waiting for something ? sorry to be negative ..it just happens ....

I love this picture of Nicky...so so so bonita, bella, beautifully ............leave this picture for a while

[Mary Jo]

Wow Bill....the only thing I have to say is I didn't realize you were such a "propeller head" too! Geez.......I'm impressed!

Ok, now for my "laymans" opinion.......... I don't know what I think. (how's that for an opinion?) Seriously....sometimes I think there is a cure "sitting" there but the drug companies are too greedy and want all the money for all the drugs we need to treat cancer. It scares me to think like that though so I try not too.

Thanks for an interesting, SMART PROPELLER HEAD, post though. (LOL - I'm not even sure I spelled "propeller" right)

Love to you................

Mary Jo

[Bill]

No, no, no, I'm not a propeller-head, if I am, it's a bent propeller shaft, Mary Jo, and Lilly, thank you so much for the flowers for Nicola.

[chrisy]

Wild Bill,
I think it's not unlikely that enough of the pieces are out there that it could be solved, now. I believe that the answer is there, now but I'm not sure if its a propellerhead or giant computer we need, or just somebody to recognize it. Maybe the next Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin sort of by accident. Or the lab tech who was working on something completely unrelated but using cancer cells because they didn't die...then accidentally killed them all.

Perhaps we need to somehow clear the clutter and noise...and let the miracle unfold.

of course, that would also apply to my closet.

[hutchibk]

LOL Chrisy. Me too.

Oh, and I almost don't understand what Billy Joe just wrote. It makes my brain hurt, but it sounds really good. You sure do use some purty words, Bill.

[juanita]

I agree that it's probably out there, just like the cure for the cold. But since there are so many types maybe they just don't want to say anything yet for fear it won't kill all cancers.

[Colleens_Husband]

Hey Bill:

An interesting idea! I would like to politely disagree with you on a unified theory of cancer. The trend is that oncologists and researchers are breaking cancer into smaller and smaller sub-groups. For example in the 60's there was 'cancer'. As time went on, cancer became localized and the treatments became varied based on the location of the cancer. Breast cancer was treated one way and stomach cancer treated another (and not very successfully, I might add). Similarity and differences between different types of cancer weren't recognized.

As, an example, today, breast cancer which is ER-/PR-/Her2 Neu+++ is treated very different from ER-/PR+/Her2 Neu+++. Science is getting much better about differentiating between different kinds of cancer, which is making treatment more targeted and therefore more effective.

I feel that as we gain more and more information about the different types of cancer, we are finding that they can have very different origins. Breast cancers can be based on hormonal factors while cervical cancers are based on a viral infection. They are both called cancer but they don't have a lot to do with each other except for what the end results look like.

Anyways, it seems like the science of cancer is pushing away from some unified theory but to a splintering into specifics types of cancers.

Of course, I could be all wrong. There may be some DNA sequence or some common DNA error which links all cancers together. Only time will tell.

Lee

[Mary Jo]

Yes Lee, that is so so true. I never thought of it quite that way. That is exactly the way cancer treatment is going. Individual cancers and more targeted therapies.

Juanita...oh my gosh...I love the picture of Dilly. It actually brings a smile to my face as I'm sure it does to everyone else here.

Love & Peace,

Mary Jo

[Bill]

Lee, I agree with you. In my initial post, I wanted to bring up the point that biological issues are so much more complex and full of variables than the problems faced by mathematicians and theoretical physicists, but I didn't want to minimalize their efforts. I'll back off from my original point, somewhat. I should not have directly equated the struggle with finding the cure for cancer(s) to the search for the "GUT"; however, I still feel that all of the necessary data to find the cures, whether the cancer be viral, or genetic, or environmentally-caused, has been obtained. As others have stated here, I think it's just a matter of co-ordinating and processing the data as a whole. Or several different "wholes". I think we may have a million hands not knowing what the other million hands are doing. Thanks for correcting me, Lee.

Allow me to comment on the subject matter, i.e., the cure for all cancers.

At the present time, cancer treatments are mostly based on the characteristics of the types of cancer under question. Thus, for certain breast cancers, the affinity of breast cancer cells to hormone is used as a fighting tool. For blood cancers, the total kill is the technique, followed by new bone marrow transplant. For liver cancers of early stage, physical removal of cancer tumors or radiotherapy on them may be the answer. HER2 has its characteristic surface property, allowing it to form the basis of Herceptin. The list goes on and on.

However, there is a universal characteristic of all cancers: they divide uncontrollablly. This universal characteristic may hold the key for a universal cure. Perhaps it is not possible to find a solution, but there have been inventions that contradicted the commonly accepted rules and scientific laws. We need such a revolutionary concept or discovery. I don't believe we currently have a universal solution yet, regardless how many gigabytes of computer power. It will come from a flick of a genius's sudden realization. It is not the greed of any mega drug company that their scientists are purposefully hiding the "truth". There simply has not yet been a solution to this enormous puzzle.

It is possible that even such a discovery does occur, the associated longer life for all human beings on this earth will accerelate the demise of the total population. From that contrarian point of view, may be it is the God's will that such a discovery should never happen.

[Mary Jo]

I'm lovin' this thread.......It's fun to read what each of us think.....................Each opinion is intriguing to me and each opinion seems to make sense.

Although we are getting closer....................it is still out of our reach.

Mary Jo

[dlaxague]

Interesting discussion! I am reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and right now he's talking about the physics. Having waltzed thru his other amusing and easy books ("A Walk in the Woods", "The Thunderbolt Kid"), this one is a surprise to me. His style is easy to read (and entertaining so it keeps me reading) but still it's hard to get my head around the ideas - particles and quarks and things unimaginable to me. But how timely that you'd bring this up now, while I'm struggling thru this book, Bill.

No, alas, I do not think a global cancer cure is around the corner. Cancerous behavior of cells is too much a part of life. I think that we will chip gradually away at many different cancers with different rates and degrees of success but I do not imagine that we will ever completely eradicate all cancers. I do think that for many cancers that we cannot necessarily cure, we will achieve some measure of control, prolonging good quality life for increasing lengths of time with minimal toxicities.

But progress is so darned slow. I don't see how anything will happen suddenly. Radical incrementalism? I think that was the topic that George Sledge presented a few years ago at SABCS and I fear that it's the best that we can expect. Herceptin, for example, is probably one of the most impressive success stories but it helps so few, in the big picture. If 25-30% of all bc is HER2+ and if less than 50% of those respond to Herceptin (and even then it's primary disease only) that's wonderful for the responders but they are still a small group. As others have said - that's what's happening now - cancer is being divided into small groups with distinct characteristics, sometimes independent of site of origin, and therapies are being customized. But it's so complex. So many variables, so many sub-categories that we are not even aware of their existence (yet). So difficult to learn how to find (and assess) the subcategories, and then to know what treatments work for them.

Physics and biology. Although as I read Bill Bryson's book I am reminded that physics is very complex, still I don't think it has nearly the diversity of things going on that biology (life) does.

Debbie Laxague

[Bill]

Marejo, I love this thread, too. (Oh, that's right, I started it, I should, lol) Debbie, thanks for the post. I need to read that book. Nikki called situations like these, "God-winks". And, last, but not least, Unregistered. The fact that cancer cells divide uncontrollably. That fact right there could be the "least common denominator" of cancer. Mankind's knowledge is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Just sit for a minute, and think about it. Color TVs weren't invented until the early 1950's, I believe, and then less than 20 years later, just because we wanted to, and motivated by the Cold War situation, and as a result of the efforts of thousands of scientists and engineers "focusing" on a common goal, we landed on the moon and a man walked on the surface. Picture anyone in 1929, and if you walked up to them on the the street and pointed up at the moon and said, "you know, in a mere 40 years, we'll have a man walking on the surface", they would have laughed in your face, but it happened. Right now, we are all thinking about what will happen in the next few months or years in regards to cancer treatments, and honestly, I really do understand that frame of mind. Lee, once again, thanks for setting me straight on those particulars. Unregistered, I've been looking at your last paragraph for two days now, and thinking. As a man of Faith, I have had those same thoughts. My response- if it's not God's Will that we should find a cure for cancer, then we won't. Ever. Having said that, I challenge all of you to come up with one single example inwhich our species has not achieved a common goal. (I'm talking technologically) We have never said, "Aaaaah, we can't do that. Let's just give up" I bet you can't. We don't give up. It is our nature to strive ever-upward and higher. God has granted us free will, and he does not stop us. It sometimes takes time, but we always reach our goals. "If we can concieve it, we can achieve it!"

[harrie]

I believe that there will not be one cure for cancer but a variety of different ways of reaching the goal. That is why I feel the goal(s) will that much more attainable.

[Colleens_Husband]

We do know several facts that most if not all cancers have some things in common. Upon reflection, maybe Bill and Unregistered have hit on something. We know that there are cancer cells in every person at all times. The body has a way of dealing with these cancer cells so that in most cases, it never becomes a problem. It is thought that normal cancer cells are dealt with by the immune system. So why is it that in some instances the immune system stops dealing with cancer cells in a normal way and people develop cancer? Maybe that isn't even the right question to ask. Perhaps the question is why in some instances do normal cancer cells overwhelm the immune system or why do normal cancer cells fool the immune system and are no longer perceived as a threat?

Maybe the universal cure to cancer is to detect immune system abnormalities which allow cancer cells to grow into tumors. Or maybe the universal cure is to find out what happens to cancer cells which allow them to fool the immune system.

The trouble with this line of thinking is that the immune system is probably the least understood system in the entire body. Prior to AIDS research, there wasn't a whole lot that people understood about the immune system. If the universal cure for cancer is to be found in modifying an immune system response, than the cure could be decades away.

And to confuse matters, cancer may not even be one single disease. There may not even be a single biological or molecular cause to different types of cancer.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I am not sure one way or another. Bill's original premise could very well be correct.

[CLTann]

Hi Everyone,

Through a quirk computer problem, I became the unregistered guest when I made the comment earlier. I apologize for not carefully identify the writer's name. I just want to show that I am responsible for what I said.

Although the details of the cancer cells propagation and survival are complicated, the common traits may allow our scientists to find an answer. I personally have been an inventor for more than 20 U.S. patents and realize the path of achieving and discovering new and novel concept are elusive and could sometimes be from a spark of sudden realization. Hopefully, this is the pathway of the future discovery. Although I am not a very religious person, sometimes I humbly concede that there are indeed limits to human overall success.

[dlaxague]

The body has a way of dealing with these cancer cells so that in most cases, it never becomes a problem. It is thought that normal cancer cells are dealt with by the immune system. So why is it that in some instances the immune system stops dealing with cancer cells in a normal way and people develop cancer?

This is one of my favorite questions. We don't seem to have very good answers, but the more they learn, the more it appears that what is different between a successful cancer and one that is killed by the immune system is not that someone's immune system doesn't function correctly and "allows" a cancer. It's not a matter of a weak or malfunctioning immune system. It's a matter of a stealthy, clever cancer. Some cancers (the successful ones) are able to trick the immune system into allowing their presence, or ignoring their presence, or in some cases being completely unaware of their presence. Some are even able to harness some functions of the immune system to aid them in their growth.

The often-heard statement about everyone having cancer cells wandering about all the time is not untrue. But those cancer cells that are recognized and eradicated by the immune system on a regular basis are the unstealthy ones. To call them "cancer" and then to compare them to cancer that has been able to establish itself and form a tumor is misleading.

So it's all about the cancer's characteristics and almost nothing about a given immune system. A person with the most robust immune system imaginable is still susceptible to the stealthy cancer. A robust immune system cannot act if it doesn't receive notice to do so.

Now if there were a way to turn off the stealth function of the successful cancer, or to mark the cancer cells so that the immune system DOES recognize them (think vaccines), we'd be onto something. Research continues, no big breakthru yet.

Debbie Laxague

[Colleens_Husband]

CLTann:

Thanks for owning your post. It was very thought provoking. I appreciate the fact that you reposted.



Debbie:

You are correct. It is misleading to compare cancer with roving unstealthy cancer cells. Forgive my imprecise use of language. I tried, obviously unsuccessfully, to make the differentiation in my post. Please forgive any misunderstanding that I may have created.

I would also like to point out that I really don't know any of the answers to this puzzle. I just want to ask questions and stimulate thought. I do have holes in my knowledge and that is why I am posting on this thread.

I try to look at biological problems as a system. The immune system failing to find some certain types of stealthy cancer cells may be a function of the immune system or a function of the stealthy cells themselves.

Or it could be just dumb luck. Cancer cells reproduce rapidly so they also mutate more rapidly. The immune system kills the less stealthy cells so that only the most stealthy survive and reproduce, creating tumors. In a way it could be a Darwinian microcosm of survival of the fittest. Eventually, given enough mutations, there will be some cells that can hide from the immune system.

Lee

[Bill]

Lee, I've got alot of holes in my knowledge as well. I've learned alot already from this thread.