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| Science & Technology |
| ‘This is not the end': Using immunotherapy and a genetic glitch to give cancer patients hope |
| 2017-05-30 |
| [WAPO] The oncologist was blunt: Stefanie Joho’s colon cancer was raging out of control and there was nothing more she could do. Flanked by her parents and sister, the 23-year-old felt something wet on her shoulder. She looked up to see her father weeping. "I felt dead inside, utterly demoralized, ready to be done," Joho remembers. But her younger sister couldn’t accept that. When the family got back to Joho’s apartment in New York’s Flatiron district, Jess opened her laptop and began searching frantically for clinical trials, using medical words she’d heard but not fully understood. An hour later, she came into her sister’s room and showed her what she’d found. "I’m not letting you give up," she told Stefanie. "This is not the end." That search led to a contact at Johns Hopkins University, and a few days later, Joho got a call from a cancer geneticist co-leading a study there. "Get down here as fast as you can!" Luis Diaz said. "We are having tremendous success with patients like you." |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #7 Not so much ego, but the patents and the medical industries themselves. Doctors are under pressure (often tremendous) to keep the income flowing in. Researching on a laptop brings in no money, going from patent to patent brings in lots of money. Which route do you think most hospitals will take? Johns Hopkins University OTOH is funded mostly by grants, etc.. There's little pressure (other than getting grants) to generate income so doctors there and in other similar non-profit centers can actually take their time to research properly and come up wit solutions. |
| Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-05-30 10:03 |
| #6 Ego Herb, ego. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-05-30 08:34 |
| #5 Immunotherapy and gene therapy, the frontiers of cancer treatment. There are benefits but also risks. Risks. Immunotherapy boosts the hosts immune system whereas gene therapy may alter the genetic structure of the cancer to destroy it. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-05-30 08:12 |
| #4 Geneticists also know the diff between genotype and phenotype, Kim. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-05-30 07:23 |
| #3 cancer geneticist I have a degree in genetics and geneticists have know for a long time cancers alter their genes/gene expressions from that of their hosts. It was only a matter of time before gene manipulation could be used against cancer. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2017-05-30 07:07 |
| #2 Why weren't the doctors the ones on the freaking laptop, searching for a way to save the patient? |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 2017-05-30 05:33 |
| #1 The drug Keytruda. Good to know. |
| Posted by: gorb 2017-05-30 05:07 |