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Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by kiba on Saturday October 02, 2021 @05:59PM (#28732466)
We probably won't kill cancer through one miracle cure, but probably through death by a thousand cuts.

That and we probably need to repair the immune system. The incident of cancer increases with age, after all.

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by cameronh90 on Saturday October 02, 2021 @09:00PM (#28733630)
I believe, as you hint towards, that the ultimate way to reduce cancer risk is to cure ageing.

Most cancers are rare in your 20s and 30s, then get dramatically more common every year after from your mid 40s roughly.

To me, this suggests that the mechanisms that stop you getting cancer (and your body/DNA repairing in general) are themselves failing.

Of course, if everyone was 25 forever we'd still all eventually die of cancer, but it would take a lot longer than the current state of affairs.

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by DoreenMichele on Sunday October 03, 2021 @12:51AM (#28734613)
Death by a thousand cuts is vastly saner than "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." when your body is the battlefield.

But most people don't really want to hear that. We hear "big, scary death label disease" and we want someone to promise they can nuke it from orbit. No one wants to hear that we need to care for the body and foster its health while battling this "demon."

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by toomuchtodo on Saturday October 02, 2021 @06:39PM (#28732747)
How do you improve the immune system to convey the improvements we’ve made with mRNA to it?
Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by jcims on Saturday October 02, 2021 @06:48PM (#28732797)
We haven't really made any improvements to the immune system with mRNA, we're just giving it some training film to be ready when the fight comes.

An immune system that has a hair trigger to new antigens would likely cause more problems than it solves. Some kind of ability to have contagious antibodies might be an actual improvement but the fact that we don't see that in nature tells me it has downsides that are difficult to see.

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by KMag on Saturday October 02, 2021 @07:38PM (#28733181)
> Some kind of ability to have contagious antibodies might be an actual improvement but the fact that we don't see that in nature tells me it has downsides that are difficult to see.

My biology education is a bit weak, but off the top of my head, autoimmunity being contagious sounds like a likely side-effect of contagious antibodies.

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by tiborsaas on Sunday October 03, 2021 @05:15AM (#28735692)
We could sample the actual cancer in the patient and custom print an mRNA cure to that specific person for maximum accuracy.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was created in hours after Covid was sequenced. So this might not be a too far fetched idea.

Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by DrAwdeOccarim on Sunday October 03, 2021 @08:54AM (#28736825)
Easier said than done, but yes most mRNA companies are trying the non-personalized and personalized cancer vaccine idea. The issue is the immune system is held back, like a big bouncer holding you back in a fight. Checkpoint inhibitors remove that bouncer, but now you're drunk and throwing fists all over the place, hitting both your friends, the bouncer, and the hooligans at the same time...
Re:The curious DNA circles that make treating cancer so hard by vmception on Sunday October 03, 2021 @12:34AM (#28734557)
The incidence of errors occurring and the incidence of error correction failing increases over time

I think that has much less to do with the immune system, although I think that can be a factor too

It’s just probability from a flawed replication process