Game over, man

[scarbrtj]

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Whilst we all existentially fret, here's something else to get unsettled about: someone is claiming cancer will be cured soon (no mention of a radiation role unfortunately). Pure, brazen effrontery. "But at my back I always hear time's winged chariot hurrying near," said the poet. I hear heartbeats hurrying near...

 

[Mandelin Rain]

I honestly can't tell if that is a serious article or satire. MuTaTo? Like PoTaTo or ToMaTo?

 

[scarbrtj]

Not satire? Who knows
AEBI | Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd.

 

[nkmiami]

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/01/15/niviens-shot

BTW In the pipeline is a great blog



It’s easy to accidentally generate the impression of an imminent win. Often, new biotechnologies really are revolutionary. Many companies, however, generate this impression intentionally, even when undeserved.

Raising money, recruiting people and building a movement around your mission almost demands irrational optimism, especially in failure-riddled drug development.

There is an allure and a danger to believing in something like this, giving it your all, and seeking to convince others to do the same while knowing the chances of success are lean. No one wants to commit to a marginal endeavor.

But employees want transparency. Investors want a fair bet. And patients, who know more than anyone, want honesty. They are not one-liners for your PR machines or slides for your pitch decks. Now, reading the latest and greatest biotech PR, I’m furious when I see overstated results and oversold potential.

Hyping tech for investors, but this is really a disservice to patients.

 

[KHE88]

I wouldn't worry. There will still be a role for 800 x 1 palliation. Hopefully we can focus on getting some more fellowships going to better prepare us and help us hone our 800 x 1 skills. Honestly we probably need to create another board exam for advanced palliation to make sure we're really competent.

 

[RickyScott]

I wouldn't worry. There will still be a role for 800 x 1 palliation. Hopefully we can focus on getting some more fellowships going to better prepare us and help us hone our 800 x 1 skills. Honestly we probably need to create another board exam for advanced palliation to make sure we're really competent.

I was lucky enough to attend a palliative lecture by a "palliative expert" at ASTRO several years ago. She had discovered that in England in the 1970s and 80s they palliated lung 850x2 AP/PA once week and was advocating that here. I tried to argue my hospital has computers and CT sim and we now can take one or both fields (or even use 3-4 fields) off esophagus or cord and she didnt seem to get it. So, yes that can be screwed up.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Oh... so this time when there's a magic bullet that cures all cancer is the one that will actually happen.

Also, the comments are very funny as a science article gets derailed in the comments by frank anti-semitism and anti-anti-semitism.

 

[KHE88]

I was lucky enough to attend a palliative lecture by a "palliative expert" at ASTRO several years ago. She had discovered that in England in the 1970s and 80s they palliated lung 850x2 AP/PA once week and was advocating that here. I tried to argue my hospital has computers and CT sim and we now can take one or both fields (or even use 3-4 fields) off esophagus or cord and she didnt seem to get it. So, yes that can be screwed up.

I've seen severe skin toxicity from old timers in the community trained before computers with a 3 year residency and grandfathered on boards doing 20 fraction palliative thoracic IMRT, essentially AP-PA with 130% at the surface. Without giving details to give it away, I know of a famous site specific academic expert have to cover once and try to treat another site, very basic, but screw it up so badly the patient died.

But the really dangerous rad oncs are the new grads like me who struggle with complicated 800 x 1 and don't know molecular bio pathways. Need more fellowships and exams and MOC to protect the public. The system is working GREAT.

 

[medgator]

Lack of transparency in healthcare startups risks another Theranos implosion – TechCrunch

 

[Lamount]

Perhaps this new technology is going clear over my head, but it seems like the premise of MuTaTo is similar to many other drugs that attempt to target a cancer-specific receptor and deliver a toxic payload... however rather than just targeting one receptor, MuTaTo targets several. I am sure this does, as the authors argue, increase the repertoire of neoplastic targets... but doesn't this also increase the chance of bystander effects? It's difficult to find 'receptors' in solid tumors that are cancer-specific, which is one of the obstacles faced CAR-T cell therapy has faced in the solid tumor world (see here) By increasing the number of molecular targets... aren't you also increasing the chance of toxicity? And if this treatment is truly customized to cell surface markers of each tumor, wouldn't these toxicities be difficult to predict a priori (i.e. how would one know if there is a receptor on the heart, brain, gut, liver etc... with similar binding properties)? Long story short... I wouldn't quit your day jobs quite yet.

 

[Brim]

 

[Palex80]

I predict that Tomato (or whatever it's called) will fail. It will kill lots of lab rats in the process though...

 

[ramsesthenice]

I don’t know if this article is more childish or arrogant. It’s a sad reality that outlandish claims can attract investors if it sounds sciency and technical enough. As if it needs to be said, I can give you ten valid reasons this treatment, like hundreds before it, is highly unlikely to be a cancer cure-all. I also hope it goes without saying that if your going to claim to have accomplished what tens of thousands of reasearches have been unable to do over the last hundred years you better have more than theory to back it up.

I hate to root for cancer, but a part of me hopes these jackasses are not the ones to find “the cure” (assuming such a thing exists).

 

[evilbooyaa]

I agree, I think it's laughable that these clowns have ZERO experiments and are basically talking about the theory of how to do it and expect everyone to treat them like they've already cured cancer.

 

[medgator]

I agree, I think it's laughable that these clowns have ZERO experiments and are basically talking about the theory of how to do it and expect everyone to treat them like they've already cured cancer.

Like I said ... Sounds like theranos.

 

[Gfunk6]

I stand by my cancer cure prediction from five years prior:

Finally, cancer is an incredibly heterogeneous disease. Not only is each site different, but each individual cancer is markedly different (e.g. an adenocarcinoma which is not EGFR/Alk mutated has a much worse prognosis than an adenocarcinoma with such mutations). Therefore, there will never be a universal cancer cure (barring the introduction of micromachine nanobot assassins, which will put all procedure based specialties out of business). Furthermore, cancer is a micro-evolutionary process and is ever adapting to therapy. The sure fire ways to "kill cancer" to obtain a cure are to surgically remove it or irradiate the bejesus out of it. In 99% of cases where Medical Oncologists have touted a chemo or small molecule "cure" the cancers come back as more resistant. Case in point is imatinib.

To med students thinking this is a dying field

 

[BruiservonWillebrand]

As a general rule, you should not believe what is linked on Drudge Report

 

[Shufflin]

The Drudge Report is actually informative and light on its bias unlike major news networks. Not laden with the thick, psychologically spun propaganda that's so obviously anti-Political Party A or B that you grow tired of very fast on sites like CNN which is pretty much meaningless to read.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

 

[scarbrtj]

As a general rule, you should not believe what is linked on Drudge Report

Lemme go Paul Harvey for a sec. The Drudge Report gained its fame, and let's say ersatz credibility, during the Lewinsky Scandal. It was the first to break the news (when Newsweek had "sat" on the story for a long time and refused to publish details of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair). Monica Lewinsky's dad is a radiation oncologist; he's known for the VNPI. If Bernie Lewinsky had not been a radiation oncologist, his daughter probably couldn't have afforded to go from California to D.C. for a non-paying White House internship. So, in a way, there would not be a Drudge Report without radiation oncology.

 

[medgator]

sites like CNN which is pretty much meaningless to read.

 

[scarbrtj]

Looks like a pelvic-examiner's-eye view: Palmer report, right foot/Breitbart, left foot/USA Today, rhymes with Delores. Also... you know.

 

[radiaterMike]

It kind of looks like an anal cancer IMRT field with the blue circle being a genitalia OAR (appropriately intersecting the "Enquirer")

 

[RadOncDoc21]

I must be contouring wrong

 

[Mandelin Rain]

That chart has PBS and Time on the border of skewing conservative. It itself, may belong in the orange to red box.