The cure for cancer just got better
Burchell, P.J.*
*SJIS. [email protected]
A recent study has found that oseltamivir phosphate-treated cohort exhibited a reduction of
phosphorylation of EGFR-Tyr1173, Stat1-Tyr701, Akt-Thr308, PDGFRa-Tyr754 and
NFkBp6S-Ser311 but an increase in phospho-Smad2-Ser465/467 and -VEGFR2-Tyr1175 in
the tumour lysates from the xenografts of human eGFP-MiaPaCa-2 tumour-bearing mice [1].
Well, it goes without saying really.
An improved cure for cancer?
Cancer was cured in May 2012 (incidentally, along with all other illness — see SJIS 4(1) for
more details). Earlier this year, however, Gilmour et al. (2013) seem to have improved things
slightly for sufferers of pancreatic cancer, a condition they blame on the autophosphorylation
of specific intracellular tyrosine residues. Now, any self respecting scientist understands what
a royal pain in the arse tyrosine residues are, so although thanks to SJIS cancer is no longer a
problem, it is excellent news that we may be able to forget the bloody things ever existed.
Cancer is the flu?
One of the most interesting implications of this original research is that the active
ingredient used for this type of cancer therapy is the same stuff used in a commonly
prescribed drug to treat the symptoms of the flu. This obviously begs the question: Is cancer
just a particularly nasty type of flu? This cannot be verified without further research but
here’s a cheeky hint — how else do you think our scientists managed to cure all of the wor1d’s
illnesses in one go last year?
Oh...wait!
In their own words, ‘most patients ultimately develop drug resistance and relapse [1].' (And
we promise that the context is probably absolutely fine). Never mind, then.
References
1. Gilmour, A. M et al., (2013), ‘A novel epidermal growth factor receptor-signalling
platform and its targeted translation in pancreatic cancer’, Cellular Signalling, 25(l2),
2587-2603.
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