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Florida's plan to replace migrant workers with children falls apart (www.newsweek.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    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

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    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!

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