"If this is half as effective in humans as it is in mice it could be that half of patients could be cured or at least given one to two years extra of high quality life." Um, Dr. Cui, there's a big difference between those two outcomes.
Research like this is wonderful, obviously, but it speaks to the general crappiness of science journalism that articles like this are the norm. It just strikes me as reckless when stories appear about how researchers are on the verge of curing cancer. Is it just me, or have they been two years away for about 40 years?
So few drugs make it to market, and the ones that do take so long, that it's high time for underpromising to become the norm. If by 2009 Dr. Cui accomplishes half of what this article says he will, I will very happily eat my shoe.
There has always been a disconnect of this sort between pop science journalism and actual scientific papers. Medical and biotech researchers, in particular, have to be ultra-cautious in their pronouncements. There are a hundred thousand variables that could render this discovery useless for humans. But that sort of caution doesn't sell newspapers. The real tragedy is the inevitable disappointment and backlash it causes among the public when the promising discovery is perceived to "fail."
This is exciting news. Someone very close to me has had cancer for a long time. She has been surviving remarkably well. I always told her if she could just hold off long enough, a cure would be developed.
It's going to be much, much easier to cure gene-related diseases in our children. Eventually we'll get both, but it's much easier to genetically modify the unborn than to engineer the living.
True. However, given some sort of neural re-sequencing technology, the two processes will become one and the same (though the word "cloning" will fall into disuse as those engineered won't have exactly the same DNA....)
Research like this is wonderful, obviously, but it speaks to the general crappiness of science journalism that articles like this are the norm. It just strikes me as reckless when stories appear about how researchers are on the verge of curing cancer. Is it just me, or have they been two years away for about 40 years?
So few drugs make it to market, and the ones that do take so long, that it's high time for underpromising to become the norm. If by 2009 Dr. Cui accomplishes half of what this article says he will, I will very happily eat my shoe.