Treating pancreatic tumours may have revealed cancer's master switch

As is often the case, the title is hyperbolic. The discovery applies to 20% of tumors, and "one of cancer's significant defenses" or "a key weakness of cancer" would be more accurate.

That said, I'll happily take "we discovered a key weakness in 20% of cancers," please and thank you.

Please remember that science is under attack in the United States - new proposals would gut the nih even beyond the horror that is ongoing. As a scientist I am horrified and I truly hope that we don’t abandon the usas historically strong investment in the future.

To offer context for others:

The bigger deal about this is that KRAS was considered an "undruggable" target.

Recent advancements have allowed us to design biologics to do things we previously thought impossible, which broadens the horizons for other treatments in the future.

Baby steps.

The study this article references is here: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06625320

Another ongoing HN thread from yesterday around some exciting cancer treatment breakthroughs, this time with a CRISPR Cas12a2 mechanism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48505231

This subthread there is a fascinating explainer about one user's journey into funding and incentivizing research into their own rare form of blood cancer, and how they are able to push forward the state of the art: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48506997 - something of a modern-day (and more accurate) Lorenzo's Oil!

I’m surprised Michael Levin’s research hasn’t expanded much beyond a certain YouTube media bubble. They’re able to start and stop cancer growth with only voltage changes between cells, likewise they can also trigger regeneration or anatomical changes using voltage changes. His research seems to suggest a lot of important anatomical plans are stored in an electric field around the body, not in the DNA. This model’s explanation for cancer is that some cells become disconnected from this field and start growing independently of the overall body plan.

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Thanks for posting useful link !