Researchers have identified how the ‘wall’ around cancer tumours functions | Hacker News Reader

Researchers have identified how the ‘wall’ around cancer tumours functions

cam.ac.uk

97 pointscodebeaker18 comments

The abstract of the published findings[1] says, "We show that despite the presence of antitumor T cells, immunotherapeutic antibodies are ineffective in a murine pancreatic cancer model recapitulating the human disease." And the word "murine" here means "mouse," as the journal article makes more clear than the press release kindly submitted here. The press release uses neither the word "murine" nor the word "mouse," and mentions "animal models" in passing just once, so when I first read the press release, I wasn't completely sure whether or not the findings were from a study of human patients. It will be important to check whether or not these findings translate into a safe and effective treatment for human patients after many more follow-up studies. As the authors note, pancreatic cancer is commonplace enough that an effective treatment for it would have a substantial good effect on human health.

Many, many submissions to HN are based at bottom on press releases, and press releases are well known for spinning preliminary research findings beyond all recognition. This has been commented on in the PhD comic "The Science News Cycle,"[2] which only exaggerates the process a very little. More serious commentary in the edited group blog post "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles"[3] points to the same danger of taking press releases (and news aggregator website articles based solely on press releases) too seriously. Press releases are usually misleading, promising more than the research result can be sure to deliver.

The most sure and certain finding of any preliminary study will be that more research is needed. All too often, preliminary findings don't lead to further useful discoveries in science, because the preliminary findings are flawed. The obligatory link for any discussion of a report on a research result like the one kindly submitted here is the article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"[4] by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. Check each news story you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the story.

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/50/20212.full

[2] http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

[3] http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coi...

[4] http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

I call this "science by press release". I don't blame universities for using these publication opportunities to call attention to their work, but it would be nice if there was a mechanism to ensure scientific accuracy in them. I can't see how to incentivize it, and regulation seems heavy handed.

ensure scientific accuracy in them

That phrase strikes me as almost redundant. Since ensuring accuracy is what "science" is supposed to be about.

well, that's part of it. When science hits PR, some of the accuracy gets dropped because it makes the story less sexy.

He is talking about ensuring scientific accuracy in the press release. Press releases are not about accuracy and have never been. They are about rallying support for a particular business decision, and there is nothing wrong or immoral about that.

You're addressing a point I didn't make. I was talking about language, not morality.

My father was just recently diagnosed with melanoma which is also a solid state cancer. It is in its very advanced stages so his prognosis is poor but if this would of happened just a few years ago he would have no choices for treatments. But now with these new immunotherapies we are starting to uncover new ways to treat these very advance cancers and they are becoming more effective with each new uncovering.

Sorry to hear about your father. These medical and technological advances should serve to make us realise that whatever the state of the politico-economic world, we live in pretty amazing times. I hope that the curiosity of humans, and our drive to learn beats out the system in the long run.

Sorry to hear about your dad.

I have already have one melanoma but luckily they found it very early on. I have more than a thousand moles though so I am constantly being checked.

Lets hope your dad will survive. It is possible even at stage 4.

Thank you for your support, I'm glad you were able to catch yours very early as that is truly the key. Surprisingly we have yet to find the primary location where it started. Which most likely means his body fought that location off already, this gives him a bit of a better chance but it also means we weren't able to find it early enough.

Best wishes to your family——dealing with this diagnosis in my family as well.

The press release unfortunately omits the fact that the treatment was only tested on mice [0]. I'm not from the medical field, but my understanding is that you shouldn't get too excited about therapies that are this early in their development. Still, it looks like a nice finding and is worth keeping an eye on!

[0] http://www.pnas.org/content/110/50/20212.full

Here's a rather more balanced report on the research and the implications of it - http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2014/01/07/can-pancr...

As someone who was lost family members to cancer, any news of advances in the fight against cancer is very exciting.

This is an interesting find. And unlike new weapons in the war on virii and bacteria, there's no way for evolution to "win" this: a cancer cell that evolved a better defense would almost surely wind up killing its host before it could reproduce.

Steve Jobs?

No.

Yes http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/05/the-pancreatic-cancer-...

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