This came across my desk before it was out in the media. The person that sent it to me is a very established cancer researcher who was also pleased at this development, early as it was in its ability to be something valuable in a real world. We had a long discussion afterwards about what it takes to prove this works in large numbers of people, what cancer it works for (or not), (they are all very different) and so much more from a science perspective. Before we say that this will put NCI out of business, or the parma giants - to whom cancer is only a small part of their business for the really big guns, just remember - this is a breakthrough, but hardly a new idea. We have been to this edge, in this same idea at least 3 times in the last decade, and none of them panned out. One day a breakthrough will happen. Just remember when it does, the knowledge that it will be based on, will come from learned core science from billions and billions of taxpayer dollars through the NIH/NCI, and work done by private pharma companies that also advanced our understanding of things. It isn't going to drop out of empty space. Applied science, which is what this is, is all based on pure science, which is what we pay for.
I had a friend who SCUBA dove with me for years. He got a government grant for $42k to study a big shell-less sea slug (sea cucumber) here in CA. Learn everything about this creature. Its life cycle, its biology, the most minute details of its reproduction, the nature of the slime on the outside of it that keeps it from getting infections and more. At the time there was no practical application for ANY of that knowledge. We all laughed that he got one of those grants that the government gives sometimes that we all bitch about, like studying the sex lives of fruit flies. Anyway, we all thought it was a joke that he got that money to go SCUBA diving and work with a couple guys at USC for a summer.
20 years ago, another friend of mine who works for Monsanto (used to design atom bomb fuses but now works on other government projects) gets a contract to figure out how to make our nuclear subs move through the water more quietly. Because the sub creates small sonic waves as water is displaced by its forward movement. So the team is working on this for a year. They come up with a paint on polymer that is kinda like jelly, that isn't water soluble, and actually micro undulates on the outside surface of the sub, eliminating the small detectable sonic waves.
Guess where they got the idea for the formula for that coating? The slime that was analyzed from those stupid sea slugs' mucous coating that my friend had cataloged the chemistry of decades ago. This is a prime example of the need to do pure science today on things that give us really basic understandings of stuff, so that someone else down the road has a catalog of it, all so they can do APPLIED science to solve problems.
Don't think that this idea of how to turn our immune system into a targeted therapy isn't built on billions of dollars in gene research and more that has happened over decades, that the NCI and pharma companies spent money on and did, most that didn't pan out into a sellable widget, or at the time a usable idea. Sometimes that research work had no known purpose except to understand our genetics, or cells, or whatever, that had nothing to do with this idea of manipulating our immune system. Nothing happens in a vacuum. So while there's a chant to not need an NCI or what ever today, they are the ones that are going to make this possible. As to the pharma companies, they have lots of diseases there are no drugs to cure, that need solving, and they will always be part of the landscape no matter what disease, even the big C, is finally eliminated in your grandchildren's lifetimes. Also note the lack of desire to fund the continuing research today, is today not tomorrow. Also that the NCI had its budget cut by our new "tighten the belt till we scream" congress. The money in NCI today is already committed to complete projects that are in process (starated several years ago many of them) and partway through their exploration. With no new money, you have to be satisfied with finishing what you started till the money tree sprouts again.
