On the same day this came out, University of Florida scientists announced a possible new treatment for cancer - not a type of cancer, ALL cancers. It works by stimulating the immune system to kill the tumor, and it’s based on a treatment for glioblastoma that had highly successful human trials last year. Hard to believe these same two developments both came out of the nutbin of Florida.
You got me for a second there.
I thought you would make a “the onion” joke of florida plan’s to send cancer patient to work the fields as a “treatment” for cancer.
I’m surprised (and kinda of relieved?) that your comment is actually about a new scientific discovery.
1, 2, 3, 98 99 100 here I go!
Hey, found you! And yes, I can time and space travel to this comment out of this one https://lemmy.world/comment/18397250
Oh yeah it’s very exciting. In 2024 a vaccine that targeted glioblastoma, an especially nasty brain cancer with an almost zero survival rate. The vaccine mimics certain aspects of tumor cells, triggering a fast, vigorous immune response that attacks the actual tumor. Encouraged by the results, they’ve somehow generalized the vaccine over the past year to stimulate an immune response to cancer cells in general. Immunological therapy is totally different from chemo or radiation, and a generalized approach is vastly different from what the whole field has been doing for decades. Very promising.
That happens like all the time, but they never work (yet!). Cancer is so agressive, dividing so fast, and thus adapting through mutations that nothing really works fully.
But maybe it will kill some of them, and let’s not stop trying! Fuck cancer.
It’s mRNA based, if I recall.
This makes it, essentially, endlessly flexible. We can now take a sample, sequence it, find the mutations, simulate what the protein looks like when folded, generate* the correct complimentary protein for that target and write the actual amino acid sequence directly into mRNA and give it to the patient.
This is currently incredibly expensive because it’s being done manually by labs full of PhDs. But every part of this process is being rapidly improved and made cheaper.
mRNA based medicines have amazing promise. For example they had the COVID vaccine designed less than 12 hours after sequencing the virus.
*using a diffusion model, like AI image generators but they produce amino acid sequences that generate arbitrarily shaped proteins
mRNA based stuff is indeed incredible, no more randomly just trying things out, it’s really the future IMO.
But for cancer it will just be a tool in the toolbox , I mean you gotta get those samples and cancer change maybe a thousand times a minute, which strain is the “bad” one? Etc. etc. etc.
One theoretical way to stop cancer altogether would be to remove the possibility for telomere lengthening (remove the production of telomerase) and “manually” allow the growth of only stem cell from time to time.
But that’s a long time from now if ever it can be done.
Oh yeah, cancer is incredibility complex. I’m not remotely qualified to predict how this will be used.
I’m on the tech side of things and the ability to read and write arbitrary amino acid sequences along with machine learning models trained to predict (ex: AlphaFold) and generate (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45051-2) protein structures is absolutely mindblowing.
It’s like we’ve been working on computers by striking flint at their CPU and listening to the traces vibrate in order to interpret the output and now someone has figured out how to plug in a keyboard and monitor.
We’re barely scratching the surface with these techniques and we’ve found multiple ways to make an AIDS vaccine and we’re discovering new ways to beat cancer. The rapid development of the COVID vaccine, thanks to mRNA, likely saved millions or tens of millions of people and prevented a global depression.
It’s such an incredible time for human advancement, it’s a shame we’re all drowning in social media fueled toxicity and people don’t see it.
Yeah totally agree!
I sometimes feel like I learned a lifetime of things, just to get it all thrown under the bus in the last 5-10 years, biological science is advancing so fast right now it’s mind blowing.
mRNA also might treat allergies and take on parts of the deadliest disease too, aging.
Interesting times!
So let me get this straight. The US needs Migrants so much that we’re needing to replace them with teenagers?
I mean, that’s one way to look at it.
The more accurate way to look at is that the American right hates migrants and people of color so much that they would force their children into hard labor just to make sure nobody who sounds or looks different receives any kind of benefit.
Not their children… other peoples children. You know… the poors… those kids can work long hours for low pay and since they are poor, they will be stupid enough to be happy about it. The people voting for this do not need to worry about it affecting their kids… or think they dont…
the American right hates migrants and people of color so much that they would force
theirother people’s children
This country has, throughout its entire history, relied heavily on immigrants to make up the shortfalls in its labor force. A full stoppage of immigration is going to collapse the United States economy. Sooner than later.
Farms have historically used their children as free labor back when they were mostly family owned. That’s why most schools here have a three month summer break. Now they want the factory farms to have that same perk, just with other people’s children.
Whoa whoa whoa, teenager is already a bit old and commands more hourly
Capitalist rule: If you can’t exploit people, just find people who are more exploitable.
Why did the children keep falling apart? Were they made of wet cardboard?
The front fell off
Newsweek states on their own website that this article is unfairly leaning left. What a strange editorial decision.
There’s I think a dollop on the brassero program that details a past program where they’d ship high schoolers to farms for the summer in an attempt to reduce migratory workers. The program failed immediately. Conservatives are insane in the literal definition of the word.
I haven’t listened to the dollop in a minute but I’m pretty sure that same episode is literally about the first wave of illegal immigration propaganda in the US, talks about how the borders changed in the 1930s.
Next step: to the jails and concentration camps for slave labor.
You should pay more attention because we’ve already been doing that this whole time.
Good thing the north left a loophole in the constitution after the civil war just for a situation like this.
Some things never change.
I can’t wait to be out of Florida
Best decision I ever made
Florida’s what now?
deleted by creator
Brand new sentence???!!!
Republican state Senator Jay Collins, the bill’s sponsor, said the measure was about parental rights: “We should let them say what’s best for their kids at 16- to 17-year-olds, that’s what we’re saying by this.”
Anyone who puts forth a measure aimed at “parental rights”, it’s always something that’s aimed at parents’ right to treat their children like property
statesparents rights!Why is it always about slavery?
Funny how you never hear them say “parental responsibilities.”
It would also have scrapped required 30-minute meal breaks
It’s a parent’s right to make sure their child works an 8 hour shift with no breaks! Breaks are socialism!
They’ve already scrapped mandatory water breaks for outside workers :(
So let’s make the jobs nobody wants to do even worse while we deport the few remaining people willing to do them.
Then try and get notoriously hard working and focused teenagers to do it.
Every one of these is always “Parent’s Rights Act” and the text is like “murdering your gay/trans 10-year-old is now totally legal”.
“My kids are in need of a proper traditional upbringing, which means locking them in a box and tenderizing them like veal, until they’re old enough to be sold at auction.”
Like how is the female property to keep the children in line if the children aren’t also property?
lol do American politicians seriously try to frame child labor laws as taking away parents rights?
When I was a kid, my mom was outraged that somebody made the statement, “children aren’t their parent’s property.”
So, yeahpart of the conservative ideology is that children are property and should be molested, not heard.
In ancent rome there was a law,that went something like “you cannot sell your son into slavery a third time”. Americans would see that as a violation of parental rights
Third? The fuck did someone do to cause that?! Was there some dude who sold his son into slavery and then said son got out of slavery at least three times so the Romans had to pass a law to keep that from happening again? Why do I get the feeling Crassus was involved.
Of course! Especially those from the party that wants crops to be picked, but doesn’t want anyone who would actually do it to exist or survive in our country. And because the term “child labor” in general is unpalatable to most people. For good reason…
Sounds like a right nightmare ya got goin on there bud
Yeah, it’s not great here… Unless you’re a billionaire and want to exploit people!
Currently every politician making a name for themselves will frame anything they can in any way they can. Words have little meaning lately so you just say whatever the fuck you want and worry about the angle later.
It’s just embarrassing for people that this works on. So stupid.
Actually surprising that the Republicans didn’t just push it through as they have a majority, but one can be happy about every news story like that
Paw… I think I got the black lung
