The Emperor of All Maladies - Revision history

Robert.adlington at 18:01, 5 November 2025

2025-11-05T18:01:18Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:01, 5 November 2025
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	*** Sustained angiogenesis - Acquiring the capacity to draw out their own supply of blood and blood vessels.		*** Sustained angiogenesis - Acquiring the capacity to draw out their own supply of blood and blood vessels.
	*** Tissue invasion and metastasis - Acquiring the capacity to migrate to other organs, invade other tissues, and colonize them, resulting in a spread throughout the body.		*** Tissue invasion and metastasis - Acquiring the capacity to migrate to other organs, invade other tissues, and colonize them, resulting in a spread throughout the body.
			**Between 1990 and 2005, the cancer-specific death rate had dropped nearly 15%, but still more than half a million Americans died of it in 2005. The decline was due to prevention (lung cancer and the decline of smoking), screening (colon and cervical cancer), chemotheapy (leukemia, lymphoma, and testicular cancer).
			**In 1982, Genetech unveiled the first "recombinant" human insulin; in 1984 it produced a clotting factor to control bleeding in patients with hemophilia; in 1985, it created a recombinant version of human growth hormone.
			**In normal cells, the Bcr and abl genes existed separately: both were tightly regulated during cell division. In CML leukemia cells, the translocation created a new chimera - Bcr-abl, a hyperactive, overexuberant kinase that activated a pathway that forced cells to divide incessantly.
			**The human genome has about five hundred kinases, of which, about ninety belong to the subclass that contains src and Bcr-abl. Every kinase attaches phosphate tags to a unique set of proteins in the cell. They act as molecular master-switches in cells - turning on some pathways and turning off others - thus providing the cell a coordinated set of internal signals to grow, shrink, move, stop, or die.
			**The Human Genome Project, the full sequence of the normal human genome, was completed in 2003.
			**The Cancer Genome Atlas will provide a compendium of every gene mutated in the most common forms of cancer, 10k times the volume of DNA to analyze as the HGP:
			***In specimens of breast and colon cancer, 50-80 genes are mutated, in pancreatic cancer 50-60, in brain cancer, 40-50
			***When comparing two breast cancer specimens, the set of mutated genes is far from identical
			***Some mutations are passive, bystander or passengers and have no impact on the biology of cancer. Only driver mutations play a crucial role
			***Passenger mutations occur randomly and are spread throughout the genome, but drivers strike key oncogenes and tumpor suppressors, and there are only a limited number of them in the genome
			***There are key cancer pathways, like Ras-Mek-Erk or Rb pathways, and there are perhaps only 11-15 such dysregulated pathways in a cancer cell. Maybe not all of them need to be targeted when attacking complex cancers.
			**New directions include:
			***Targeted therapies against these genes
			***Cancer prevention - with better understanding of carcinogens
			***Cancer screening - with better targeting og people with known genetic mutations
			***Better understanding of cancer behavior - What allows a cancer cell to keep dividing endlessly without exhaustion or deplotion generation upon generation
			**Stem cells are a tiny population of cells that are capable of immortal regeneration. All human blood, for instance, can arise from a single, highly potent blood-forming stem cell. In weeks a single such blood stem cell can replenish the enitre human organism with new blood and then, when done, goes back to sleep
			**Atossa's journey:
			***In 2500 BC in Egypt, Imhotep has a name for her illness but no treatment.
			***In 500 BC in her own court she has a mastectomy
			***In 300 BC in Thrace, Hippocrates identifies her tumor as a karkinos
			***In AD 168, Galen hypothesizes a systematic overdose of black bile
			***In 1779 in London, John Hunter assigns early and late stages of cancer, with a local operation for the former.
			***In 1890 in Baltimore, she is given a radical mastectomy
			***In the early 20th C, radiation is used via X-rays
			***By the 1950s, she will have a lumpectomy followed by radiation.
			***In the 1970s, she will have surgery followed by combination chemotherapy
			***From 1986, she can have targeted therapy with Herceptin
			***By the mid 90s she can be screened earlier and then have intensive follow up screening. Her daughters can even opt for preventive surgery
			***In 2050, personalized targeted therapies may be tailored to the exact mutations detected in her genome.

Robert.adlington at 06:53, 5 November 2025

2025-11-05T06:53:11Z

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 * 1928 - Invention of the Pap smear.
 * 1913 - Invention of the Mammography
 * 1955 - Philip Morris introduce the Marlboro Man

Robert.adlington: Created page with "* Leukemia - discovered in 1845 * Pernicious anemia is caused by a lack of vitamin B * More than 300bn blood cells are produced per day, but if there is a lack of folic acid then production in the bone marrow halts. * Metastasis - "beyond stillness" * Cancer asphyxiates us by filling bodies with too many cells. It is an expansionist disease, it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeking "sanctuary" in one organ and then immigrating to anothe..."

2025-11-04T21:26:15Z

Created page with "* Leukemia - discovered in 1845 * Pernicious anemia is caused by a lack of vitamin B * More than 300bn blood cells are produced per day, but if there is a lack of folic acid then production in the bone marrow halts. * Metastasis - "beyond stillness" * Cancer asphyxiates us by filling bodies with too many cells. It is an expansionist disease, it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeking "sanctuary" in one organ and then immigrating to anothe..."

New page

* Leukemia - discovered in 1845
* Pernicious anemia is caused by a lack of vitamin B
* More than 300bn blood cells are produced per day, but if there is a lack of folic acid then production in the bone marrow halts.
* Metastasis - "beyond stillness"
* Cancer asphyxiates us by filling bodies with too many cells. It is an expansionist disease, it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeking "sanctuary" in one organ and then immigrating to another. It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively - at times, as if teaching us how to survive. A cancer cell is an astonishing perversion of the normal cell. Cancer is a phenomenally successful invader and colonizer in part because it exploits the very features that make us successful as a species.
* Cancer is a clonal disease. Nearly every known cancer originates from one ancestral cell that, having acquired the capacity of limitless cell division and survival, gives rise to limitless numbers of descendants.
* Hippocrates around 400BC - Karkinos is Greek for crab. Onkos is Greek for a mass, a load, or a burden.
* For Galen, around AD 140, both cancer and depression are caused by an excess of black bile. Melancholia comes from melas (black) and khole (bile).
* Autopsy comes from the Greek "to see for oneself".
* Anesthesia first demonstrated in 1846.
* Pasteur proposes the existence of bacteria.
* 1867 - discovery of antisepsis through carbolic soap.
* 1895 - Rontgen discovers X-rays.
* 1902 - The Curies discover Radium, which is seen to be attacking DNA. Marie Curie dies of leukemia in 1934.
* Specificity - the ability of a medicine to discriminate between its intended target and its host.
* 1849 - Wöhler synthesizes urea, demolishes vitalism and proves that organic and inorganic chemistry are interchangeable.
* 1882 - Chemotherapy, the use of chemicals to heal the diseased body is invented by Ehrlich.
* Lymphomas - cancers of the lymph glands.
* In 1944, the Manhattan Project spent $100m each month at the Oak Ridge site. In 1948, Americas spent more than $126m on Coca-Cola.
* 1918 - Spanish flu kills 600k Americans, and 50m people worldwide.
* Howard Skipper - "A model is a lie that helps you see the truth."
* The blood-brain barrier is an ancient biological system that has evolved to keep poisons from reaching the brain
* Sarcoma - a cancer of the connective tissues
* 1952 - Polio vaccine.
* Dogs, humans, and lions are the only animals known to develop prostate cancer.
* Endocrine system = hormonal messenger system
* Palliate comes from the Latin palliare = to cloak.
* By 1953, Americans smoked 3,500 cigarettes per year
* In 1953, the tobacco companies publish the "Frank statement".
* "Doubt is our product"
* 1971 - Last cigarette commercial on US TV.
* The time lag between tobacco exposure and lung cancer is 30 years.
* 1998 - The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the tobacco companies.
* Carcinogenesis - a cell's journey toward malignant transformation.
* 1928 - Invention of the Pap smear.
* 1913 - Invention of the Mammography
* Retrovirus - an RNA virus that can vonvert its genes into DNA and lodge into the human genome.
* 1955 - Philip Morris introduce the Marlboro Man