From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Mon Jun 09 2003 - 23:19:02 MDT
Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 10:20 AM 6/7/03 -0400, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
> >There is a program which not only fails to keep you young
> > indefinitely, but which contains design dependencies upon the failures.
>
> In my original post to which you objected I stated clearly:
>
> >how about finding something *else* that's specific to tumor cells
> > and damaging *that*, and leaving the immortality fix alone?
>
> Granted that was snide and abbreviated, but I think the generalization is
> obvious. Of course the current blind watchmaker kludge has reached a local
> optimum for brainy creatures with no scientific-technical culture. But we
> clean our teeth and go to dentists without fearing some genetically fated
> doom when we tamper with the evolved phenotype and its homeorhetic
> trajectories. As Robert pointed out, many nonmitotic tissues never hit
> their Hayflick limit anyway. Let's find markers (some are already known,
> after all) for neoplastic cells and zap them on a targeted basis.
I haven't had a chance to go beyond the abstract yet but the following
seems on point.
Published online before print April 30, 2003, 10.1073/pnas.1031601100
PNAS | May 27, 2003 | vol. 100 | no. 11 | 6682-6687
IMMUNOLOGY
Spontaneous regression of advanced cancer: Identification of a
unique genetically determined, age-dependent trait in mice
"We have established and studied a colony of mice with a unique
trait of host resistance to both ascites and solid cancers induced
by transplantable cells. One dramatic manifestation of this trait is
age-dependent spontaneous regression of advanced cancers. This
powerful resistance segregates as a single-locus dominant trait, is
independent of tumor burden, and is effective against cell lines
from multiple types of cancer. During spontaneous regression or
immediately after exposure, cancer cells provoke a massive
infiltration of host leukocytes, which form aggregates and rosettes
with tumor cells. The cytolytic destruction of cancer cells by innate
leukocytes is rapid and specific without apparent damage to
normal cells. The mice are healthy and cancer-free and have a
normal life span. These observations suggest a previously
unrecognized mechanism of immune surveillance, which may have
potential for therapy or prevention of cancer."
- Brett Paatsch
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jun 09 2003 - 23:29:11 MDT