Recently I read reports in several places of research conducted by Rosandra Kaplan, an oncologist at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College in New York and David Lyden, a Cornell associate professor in pediatrics and developmental biology. It was, I think, quite a significant piece of research. It was published in the December 8, 2005 edition of the journal Nature.
The Cornell research team conducted their experiments on mice, animals that have proven quite useful as human models for many medical studies (though, along with the Animal Rights campaigners, I am not particularly comfortable with their cruel exploitation). They injected the mice’s skin with lung cancer cells, expecting them to migrate immediately to the lungs.
Instead, the scientists watched as fluorescently labeled bone marrow cells reached the lungs days before to make the metastasis possible.
The researchers concluded that cancers use bone marrow cells to prepare supportive landing sites ahead of the arrival of tumor cells, enabling successful development of metastatic tumor sites. The bone marrow cells actually help make blood vessels that provide oxygen and other nutrients needed to sustain the spreading cancers.
A comment on the study by Patricia Steeg, director of molecular therapeutics at the US National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., suggested the experiments on mice with lung cancer seem to answer longstanding questions about what gives tumors the power to invade new tissues. Drugs such as Avastin from Genentech Inc. and Roche Holding AG that can slow blood vessel growth in existing cancers also might help doctors prevent metastasis, wrote Steeg.
The marrow cells appeared to aid the spread of cancer by making a natural protein called vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1, which is thought to spur the formation of tumor-feeding blood vessels. With clinical application immediately in mind the mice were injected with molecules that blocked the protein, VEGFR1, and it was noted that the metastasis stopped.
Some drugs work by blocking another related protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which interacts with VEGFR1 in blood vessel formation. In addition, immune system antibodies, that block bone marrow cells in the bloodstream are also under development at Cornell.
Cancer is an important disease, or collection of diseases. It is the number two cause of death in the United States after heart disease. Researchers have long wondered just how pieces of a tumor can break off, travel through the bloodstream, and grow elsewhere such as the lung, liver, or brain. It is usually the metastatic disease that proves fatal.
Certainly for those who already have cancer this research is important, as are the drug and antibody therapies that it will inspire. If they prove life saving then clearly that will be very welcome indeed.
However, I am not completely convinced that it is as simple as the people who would like to market the solutions would have us believe. I wonder, for instance, what impact having flourescently treated bone marrow cells in vivo in the first place might have. How much has that influenced the study and not merely facilitated it.
I am certain that the nature of the cellular environment is important, but in addition to VEGF and VEGFR1 what else is there? How toxic was the whole body or in the case of people rather than mice, the whole person? If people develop disease within a given cellular environment then something or somethings about and within that environment enabled or caused it or both.
Where is the cleansing? Why is it automatically appropriate to further toxify the environment with drugs and artificial antibody treatments? Without proper cleansing it is no wonder so many orthodox treatments fail partially or completely or patients relapse.
Again I say, if the treatments developed as a result of this research save lives, then they are very welcome. However, I cannot accept it as a panacea because it remains locked within the orthodox paradigm. I would much prefer to see people adopt a healthy lifestyle and to maintain so much positive health and wellbeing, diseases like cancer were prevented. Prevention is and will always be far better than cure.
