Cancer: Will there ever be a cure?

[Ramen King Roshi]

Come now, everybody knows that pizza cures cancer.

[Golden Dysprosium]

What about hotdogs?

[SakuraLanee-Shinsei]

I agree with Cherokee - no one cancer is exactly the same but, the way I see it, we should be able to cure cancer by further understanding genetics as well as things on the cellular level since that is typically where it all begins.

We are decoding the human genome and if the govt. stops being so restrictive when it's not needed, I think we could easily figure out a cure to cancer one day.

[Eudes IV]

Golden Dysprosium

No, it's fine. What would be good is if we had a med that restores the proper gene functions without affecting other cells, or a vaccine that strengthens the "executioner" function so that the mutation can't override the apoptosis. Basically, something that either restores the functions or makes sure that the cancerous cells die, without affecting the other cells. Or maybe just whip up a special antigen that bonds to the defective cells and let the immune system go at them.

Well, restoring the affected zones would imply knowing where they actually are located, which we cannot yet manage to find out. They can be anywhere on a chromosome.

Perhaps a vaccine could strengthen the immune system, although I really don't know about that.

Actually there is a "discriminating" thing in the tumoral cells : they have no cadherin, which explains their abnormal multiplication. So, maybe that you could find an antigen that would fix itself exclusively on cancerous cells, on the basis of that.

Or last possibility I'm thinking of: one could find something to stimulate permanently the repairing systems.

[Rei_Toei]

Taps!Grabs!
There is an article in this or maybe last month's Smithsonian about a recent discovery that appears to directly address cancer development and growth. Apparently micro-RNAs are found to turn on and off the mutations. I am expressing this poorly, but accurately.

Here is an article about this, although not as easy to read as the Smithsonian feature.

Micro-RNA molecules control oncogene development