Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?

From: klsk (laksdjk_at_jasjh.com)
Date: 07/07/04 

Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 13:10:58 +0300

bae@cs.toronto.no-uce.edu.yyz wrote:

[snip]
>Ideally, yes. This is the goal of immunotherapy for cancer -- to
>identify some distinctive antigen on the patient's cancer cells'
>surface that is not found in normal cells, and induce the immune system
>to regard that antigen as foreign and produce antibodies to attack the
>cancer cells. I.e., to "immunize" the person against the cancer.
>
>Unfortunately, in practice, since the cancer cells have the same genome
>as the patient' normal cells, the surface antigens, which are proteins,
>are pretty much the same. There have been some promising clinical
>trials of these techniques, but AFAIK, none have panned out in general
>use. Research continues along these lines, because if it can be gotten
>to work, it would be very good treatment method.
>
>Your idea of using a virus to 'flag' cancer cells with a foreign antigen
>so the immune system can identify and destroy them is an interesting one,
>but the virus would have to flag only cancer cells and not normal ones,
>i.e. distinguish the two, which is not easy. Also, one characteristic
>of cancer cells is that the 'quality control' mechanisms for reproduction
>and self-repair in normal cells are disrupted, so they mutate rapidly,
>become diverse, and any cells that happen to be resistant to a particular
>treatment will survive, multiply and take over in the same way that
>strains of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
>
[snip]

Thanks bae for you post.

While there may be more reasons for Type 1 the virus-induced attack on betacells
is thought to be valid. It has been demontrated that a lot of Type 1 diabetes
started with a virus infection.

Type 1 has been since time immemorial with cases in ancient egypt. Type 1
(insulin dependent). The virus attack has been around for thousands of year and
it specifically attacks certain cells. Yet the body has cells of all kinds. And
there a lot of virus strains. Mutation of body cells has been around allways. Why
hasn't there been more of the same "virus-makes-cell-look-foreign" -type of
disease)? This leads me to assume virus strains (or some of them) may have a
"generic" function that that this type of damage to cells. If so could it be
manipulated to attack other cells instead?

Above is hypothetical of course. I don't know how complex the dna of a virus is
but since viruses are minuscule I believe it's not too complex. Should a virus
which causes betacell attack found. Perhaps it's allready known since a lot of
work has been done with regards to diabetes. Researchers could turn genes of that
virus one-by-one and see if a similar immune system attack would be induced but
now against cancer cells.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?
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  • Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?
    ... >works by changing patients own gene to do some beneficial work. ... It works by extracting cells from a patient who lacks functional copies ... >phage whatever) that homes in on cancer cells or whatever and destroys it. ... There has been talk of developing bacteriophages to attack pathogenic ...
    (sci.med.diseases.cancer)
  • Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?
    ... >surface that is not found in normal cells, ... >Unfortunately, in practice, since the cancer cells have the same genome ... >Your idea of using a virus to 'flag' cancer cells with a foreign antigen ... While there may be more reasons for Type 1 the virus-induced attack on betacells ...
    (sci.med.diseases.cancer)
  • Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?
    ... >>If only it were so easy to distinguish a patient's cancer cells from ... produced to fight the pathogen cross-react and also attack the beta ... surface that is not found in normal cells, ...
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  • Re: Genetically engineered micro-organisms to fight disease?
    ... >>If only it were so easy to distinguish a patient's cancer cells from ... produced to fight the pathogen cross-react and also attack the beta ... surface that is not found in normal cells, ...
    (sci.med.diseases.cancer)
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