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Yes, you can post your opinions in this thread, what I meant was my post isn't just "Cure for Cancer" in General.

What I am going into is perhaps a real cure for cancer... under development.

A virus rotates around a human cell and looks for the easiest point of entry, then it breaks into the target, locates the nucleus and slaps onto the genetic material. Now the cell divides and copy the virus. The virus 'eats' up the membrane content and makes more copies of itself then hundreds of new viruses go into nearby cells and hijack it.

Splendid, thats what Doctors want. Dr. Stephen and his research group have been able to harness and alter deadly viruses (and bacteria) in order for them to not attack normal human cells, but on the contrary, penetrate tumour cells. This is useful when the tumour is deep within the brain. They use the advantages of viruses and the characteristics of tumours and destroy the cancer cells. Like they both can still function in oxygen-nonexistant/ low-oxygen environments. The virus or bacteria can quickly destroy the cancer cells more efficiently and when researched more, can pose less of a risk than chemotherapy. This breakthough may one day be the cure for cancer. Once the altered virus is administered, then with just some radiation can wipe out cancer growth fully one day. The biologists have tested these viruses on some patients and received very pleasing results.

However, during the injecting of viruses/bacteria, scientists have to find ways to avoid the body to build up immunity to the foreign 'material'. 1) To suppress the immune system long enough entil the virus has reached it's target. 2) Render the virus in a protein coat which makes is seemingly 'invisible'.

Examples of viruses and bacterias they altered:

Rehab Virus: One of the most infectious disease causing microbes, like this measles virus, are being retrained to attack tumour cells instead of healthy ones.

C.Botulinum: The bacterium that causes food poisoning also thrives in the oxygen-deprived depths of tumours, where it delivers a cancer-killing toxin.

Salmonella: Another bacterial resident of unclean good, it has a natural affinity for tumor cells and can be genetically altered to produce a powerful anticancer agent.

Epstein-Barr: This virus triggers the production of killer immune cells that can be directed to destroy any number of different cancer cells.

Seems like a plausible idea, unlike nanobots and stem cell research. A couple of things:

A. What is the estimated/current cost?
B. Do the viruses have any harmful side effects?
C. What if the virus mutates so that it doesen't only kill cancer?

That last one might seem farfetched, but viruses mutates VERY quickly, as they replicate themselves very fast in large quantities. Playing with viruses is a dangerous thing, in my opinion.

and D. What happens to the virus after it kills the cancer?

If you a month or two away from dying from cancer, would you really care about the risk if it meant you might be cured within weeks?

yea,fela you wouldnt care the cost as logn as u had got the pain away and had been cured,but yea what if the virus didnt kill all the cancer and the doctors didnt know(i doubt they wouldnt)?

the cost doesnt matter much, i dont think, because once we find how to train these viruses for the better, i dont think it will cost as much... but i dont care for money that much... especially when it coms to saving human lives.

ya, this can be very dangerous work, we gotta be very careful, who knows, some resident evil crap might break out if were not careful.

but, imagine how amazing it would be to finally find the cure for all diseases???

and i completely agree with the cloning project.

Resident Evil isn't even REMOTELY possible. Atleast... from what sparse dialogue I heard in the first movie... seriously... a virus giving your heart an electrical shock and waking you up from the dead? Then again, why are we aiding people with diseases? Why put glasses on the vision impaired? Isn't that just making us weaker? I know it sounds cruel, but all our compensation for the disordered is making the gene pool collectively weaker.

All except the glasses part, glasses are often used by people who read a lot (Scientists), aiding people who are going to do good will make up for bad genes.

One idea I had was to make viruses that contained the person's DNA, so that when they do their normal act of copying "their" DNA over the cells in your body, they would in actuality end up simply refreshing the DNA of body cells. Cancer cells are mutated cells, so this would get rid of their mutations, at which point they would resume their normal activities. This way, you wouldn't have to engineer the virus to distinguish cells: it could indescriminately infect any cell of the body, as it would just replace the DNA with your own anyway.

Radiation is probably one of the most commonly devised methods of controling and destroying cancer. Another to detect it, is supersonic.

Thing is, if it is early and detected, it WILL be destroyed. However, if it was discovered late, it will become fatal...

This sounds bloody wonderful, but with it the world will need to institute stricter birth control standards!

I wish it would b that easy...

The reason people get shots and such, does not make our bodies any weaker at all, the shots are mixes of dead viruses that our body would not normally recognize, so that if we get attacked by a real virus, our body can kill it. Many antibiotics act the same way, they don't fight our battles, they direct our immune system to fight.
It's not an early/late issue, it's a local, spread out issue. If someone has a malignant cancer that spreads to various parts of the body, they're a gonner; but say someone has a cancer in one part of their body for a couple years, but it never spreads to the blood stream. Then it is benevolent and they aren't in much danger. It is not always genetics that causes cancer, sometimes it is only too much of one protien in a cell that can trigger it.

Viruses mutate, it could "change its alliance".

But overall, I don't think viruses can be "trained" to attack specific cells.


Screwed, what are your sources?

You've got a point tuxedo but I heard that they are modifing viruses to kill cancer and lead white blood cells to attack the tumor rather than prevent it

I read it from my TIME Magazine titled "When bad bugs go good" on the 'Hail, Mary' cover issued on 28th March.

However, I scanned across the web and came across the same article.

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0...1039733,00.html

If you didn't subscribe the Time Magazine and register, you can only read the first paragraph or two then the rest is deleted.

Does Cancer hurt when you have it?

Tumors can exsist without the person noticing, so I don't think so. But I don't know, youd have to ask someone with cancer.

I heard of cancer as like a cell that can divide infinitely without ever dying, is that true? In ways its better than our own cells right?

I did a little search on google and it is very interesting why cells die off and stop dividing and why cancer cells do not.

Yea, it divides indefinitely, but that's all it does. It can't carry out any real functions, making it useless, and making your own cells more superior. But because it divides at a very fast rate, it becomes a problem, interfering with your other cells' activities, and that's how people die. These useless cells replace functional cells in mass and functions are not carried out properly.

Thats freaky, immortal out of control cells that do nothing. I was searching on google and saw these HeLa cancer cells from this person who died many years ago, but her cells are still growing and used in research. I also read that cancer cells can have really deformed things like extra or missing chromosomes.

They aren't immortal, they die when you do. The main reason they keep dividing though is because most have the missing membrane function that recognizes either how much pressure is around them, or how many cells they are touching. (forget which of these it is) The cell believes that it is in an empty area, and signals run telling the cell to divide. The dividing is what I guess would make them seem like they live forever, the cells that are created are not the same as the cell before it divided.

I read that there is a piece of information in one of the chromosomes that every time the cell divides it loses a bit of it until it is to short and will not divide any more


http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/...s/C/Cancer.html

Henrietta Lacks's cancer cells are still growing even though she died 50 years ago.

That is how many scientist theorize we die of old age.
We got to do an experiment involving this in APBiology, it was fun watching little bateria we made die off. (It was actually really boring)

Yea when I mean they are immortal I mean that the cells keep dividing infinitely.