How to cure cancer: What you need to know.

[Guest guest]

Lots of people would like to cure cancer.  I would too.  So I've

thought about it and come up with a recipe for how to do it:

 1. Start with a deep understanding of the underlying science.

    A good beginning would be general, organic and biochemistry,

    cell biology and genetics.  If you don't have those, how are

    you going to begin to understand what's going on in the

    tumors?  You'll also need a good bit of medicine and human

    physiology (mouse physiology too.)

 2. Follow that with a deep study of the cancer you are trying to

    cure.

    What *exactly* is the difference between a healthy cell and a

    tumor cell in your favorite cancer?  Are there genetic

    mutations?  Which ones?  Are there cell signaling molecules

    involved like testosterone?  How are they involved?  How

    about signal receptors, amplifiers, transducers, promoters,

    suppressors, and so on?  What is it that is causing your

    cancer cells to multiply?  What allows them to metastasize?

    How do they escape immune system activation, hormone

    deprivation, chemotherapy, and other anti-cancer treatments?

    The cell biology is a foundation, but you'll also need to

    understand a lot about the human body and how the cancer

    operates in the context of the complete organism.  You'll

    need to meet and treat some real live cancer patients, and

    maybe even dissect some dead ones - or at least look at the

    photos of dissections.

 3. Come up with a theory about how to intervene.

    You know the basics and you have figured out the differences

    between cancer and healthy cells, now you need a theory about

    how to intervene in the disease process.

    How do the existing treatments function in the cancer

    environment and why do they succeed or fail?

    Will turning off a signal molecule do it?  Can you find the

    cancer cells and kill them with drugs?  Is there a molecule

    of a particular shape and electrical configuration that you

    can count on to suppress expression of an oncogene or

    stimulate the expression of a tumor suppressor gene?

    You get the idea.  It's like figuring out what size capacitor

    will smooth out the hum in your radio receiver or, if you

    like, what flavoring to put in your eggnog.  Well, it's a

    dozen orders of magnitude more complicated than that, but the

    concept is similar.

 4. Build up some lab skills.

    Learn how to extract DNA from cells, replicate it, and

    isolate specific genes.  Learn how to sequence a gene and

    compare it to a genetic database.

    Build up your skill with the electron microscope.  You'll

    need to be able to image the disease processes inside the

    cells.

    Learn how to handle and take care of mice, how to dissect

    them, and how to recognize and characterize tumors inside

    them.

 5. Test your theory.

    Start with running chemistry experiments.  Do the drugs

    you've designed interact with the chemicals in the body in

    the way you thought they would?

    Good.  Then check the effect on actual cells.  Culture some

    healthy cells and some disease cells and try out the drugs.

    Are the effects in the cell what you wanted?

    They are?  Great!  Bring out the mice.  Let's find out if the

    cellular reactions in the test tube work the same way in a

    living mammalian cancer patient, i.e., a mouse.

    We've done the basics.  Now we run Phase I, Phase II, and

    Phase III controlled clinical trials and do a thorough

    statistical analysis of the results.

    Did the patients with your new treatment have extended life

    and regression of symptoms and biomarkers?  Yes?

    Congratulations!  You've done it!

    That's really all there is to it.

What's that you say?  Isn't there a shortcut without going

through all of that?  What if you don't want to study bioscience

and medicine for twenty or thirty years?  What if you're not real

good with that kind of stuff?  What if you don't want to put in

years of 60 hour weeks in the lab?  What if you're not keen on

reading scientific papers every night when you go home?  What if

you don't like to hang around sick people in hospitals and

clinics?  What can you do that is an " alternative " to all of

that?

Well, you can always do what the alternative medicine folks do.

Go out and pick some herbs.  Pick ones that look just right to

you.  Study the shape, the color, the smell.  Use your intuition

and your imagination to tell you which ones will cure cancer.  If

you can find an old Indian medicine man and get his opinion,

that's even better.  Tell him you want to know how he treats

cancer.  Explain it to him - you know, it's what happens when you

get old and sick and die.

You don't need to figure out what the herbs do in the test tube,

the cell, or the mouse, and you don't need to run clinical trials

and analyze results.  Just sell the stuff to people on the

Internet who think they might have cancer and see if any of them

say they think, maybe, they got better.  If you sell a thousand

bottles of the stuff and one or two folks write back and say,

" Gee, that was good " , then you're onto something.  All the other

folks probably thought it was good too, but were too busy getting

on with their lives to write to you.

And incidentally, if you've done this for cancer treatment, you

can surely fix televisions, computers, automobiles, and jet

engines the same way.  After all, they're a lot less complicated

than cancer.  If you can cure cancer without studying

biochemistry, medicine, and genetics, then surely you can fix

your iPad without studying electronics.  Just go down to Radio

Shack and pick some parts that look just right and stick them in.

You'll get it fixed up in no time.

     Alan