Gene ‘switch’ reverses cancer in common childhood leukaemia model

wehi.edu.au

42 points·jcr··6 comments

@Blahah: What is the result from the work on cultured human cells? I am expecting it to be a good invention.

'Model'? So are they curing cancer by simulations now?

In molecular biology 'model' usually refers to a model biological system - an organism or experimental setup that can exhibit the phenomenon under study but is easier to manipulate genetically than the ultimate system of study.

In this case they used mice that suffer from leukaemia as the initial model, then moved to working in cultured human cells.

The actual paper: http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/28/12/1337.abstract

Having worked in the field of protein recruitment simulations, I can confirm this. We need to know a lot more before we can actually build a simulation of the entire protein dynamics in a cell (which is what would be needed to make any sort of reliable sim-model-only predictions).

Computer simulations _do_ help in guiding the research by showing gaps in the theoretical understanding and identifying candidate proteins/genes for further experimental investigation, but no researcher in their right mind would take some finding from a current cell-biological computer simulation and publically declare "We've identified the cause for cancer X".

Unfortunately. I still hope to see in my lifetime the day computer systems are powerful enough so that you introduce the full human genome and the system fully simulates the human being from the first cell on. I know it's a long long shot. And quantum mechanics simulations are some of the most complex challenges we have. Still, it would be a truly amazing achievement.

What about cheap organ generation. No more guinea pigs, no more in-faux-vivo results. Seems closer (and cheaper) to us than quantum computing.

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