[Fis] Cancer Cure?

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Plamen and FIS Colleagues,

Finally I could find some spare time for the paper you mentioned. It is 
very interesting. The analysis of hydrophobic profiles for proteins 
shows rather unexpectedly a power law (self similar) scaling--self 
organized criticality (SOC). How much hydrophobic the protein becomes 
seems to be subject to Darwinian evolution in the relationship with its 
target in the host. For instance, in the virulence of Influenza and 
other types. Yes, it looks as if a new analytical tool can be 
incorporated to the existing plethora of 
biomolecular/biophysical/bioinformatic medical resources.

I have serious doubts, however, that the formidable claim in the title 
"SOC: A Prophetic Path to Curing Cancer" has any chance to be realized. 
Although not being a biomedical expert in cancer at all, I think that 
the NDV oncolytic virus --the proposed magic tool-- has not proved its 
general efficacy for all tumors and metastasis. I mean just in vitro. 
The complexity of cancer types, of cancer ecologies, and of the 
interactions with the immune system, suggest that "massive doses by 
arterial injection" as the author proposes might never be dreamed of for 
any clinical trial. Given the complete lack of evidence, no ethical 
committee would devote more than 5 seconds to consider the issue.

Let me reiterate that the the analysis of hydrophobic profiles looks 
very interesting, but directly jumping to prophetic cures of cancer... 
Some years ago, a mathematician also claimed that incorporating 
non-linearity analysis in the timing of anti-cancer combined therapies, 
tremendous advancements could be achieved. After the media immediate 
uproar, the final conclusion was that only in a few cases there could be 
an improvement of the treatment.

So, as you Plamen were pointing some days ago, medicine is very 
important for us, a matter of life or death, of deep knowledge and high 
anxiety. That means that withing the messiness of the whole disciplines 
and informal practices involved, there always be quacks and prophets 
playing with wild cards, trumping the credulity of people for 
self-promotion or for marketing reasons. It is chilling that entire 
practices in industrialized medicine may be regularly caught into those 
blind games. But it is not only medicine, our scientific technological 
civilizations are blind in so many regards!

All the best-- Pedro

-- 
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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