F@H's Recent Work On Cancer

[PantherX]

I read Part 1 (https://folding.stanford.edu/home/a-dis ... -overview/) and it was well written and easy to comprehend for a non-technical person.

While Part 2 (https://folding.stanford.edu/home/a-dis ... l-details/) had more technical details, I think that there is a missing symbol in this sentence:

We found out for the first time that the time (106 s) it takes to tansit from inactive state to active state (activation) is about five times longer than the time (21 s) it takes for the reverse process (deactivation).

The unit of time given is seconds so initially, I thought that it was 106 seconds and 21 seconds respectively but later in the article, this is stated:

The time it takes for c-src to transit from inactive state to active state is around one tenth of a thousandth of a second,16 which is quite a long time on the atomic scale.

So now, it got me thinking that rather than 106 seconds (106 s), does it actually mean 106 microseconds (106 μs) and 21 seconds (21 s) actually mean 21 microseconds (21 μs).

Would appreciate a clarification.

[Jesse_V]

Nice!

[ChristianVirtual]

Really nice; a great start.

[ChristianVirtual]

Just out of curiosity: what projects we folded where part of this ?

[JC.Wu]

Hi PantherX. Good eye! You are right. When the docx document that I emailed to Dr. Pande is downloaded and opened up in Microsoft Word it shows as μs not s. If it's just opened on the browser, the μ is missing. I didn't notice that until just now. Next time I'll figure out a way to make it consistently show up. Sorry about the confusion.

[Grandpa_01]

Try copy and pst from word to notepad then post it. That has worked for me in the past with similar problem.

[trench]

I've just read the post, and as a person with a non-biomedical background this post really got me excited! From what I understand, F@H has analyzed the protein c-src, which is most commonly found and required by cancer cells, and has found a location where it can be bound to, to prevent it from ever becoming active - thus turning it off. What's next in the process? Is a drug now under development? Isn't this a holy grail of cancer research? Perhaps I'm getting over excited.

[Jesse_V]

I've just read the post, and as a person with a non-biomedical background this post really got me excited! From what I understand, F@H has analyzed the protein c-src, which is most commonly found and required by cancer cells, and has found a location where it can be bound to, to prevent it from ever becoming active - thus turning it off. What's next in the process? Is a drug now under development? Isn't this a holy grail of cancer research? Perhaps I'm getting over excited.

I believe the phrase would be "cautiously optimistic". Remember that developing a drug is a slow and lengthy process, and there's a lot to do. Key to it is understanding a mechanism by which it could work, but that's one of the first steps in the process. This certainly is promising and exciting, but there's a ways to go yet. This is not the only research route against cancer, but it certainly is one of them.

[ChristianVirtual]

My guess also would be still some years to go until an approved drug is available. I'm not too familiar with the development of drugs but one of the next steps is to confirm the mechanism, develop/find the active compound(s) using the mechanism to prevent cancer cells grow, formulate a drug, make several phases of clinical trials, convince the officials about the data and get it approved. Finally a drug can be produced and shipped to the patients. Lots data, lots paper, lots money.
But if it can safe a life, it's good invested effort.

[PantherX]

Thanks for the clarification, JC.Wu.

You could try saving it as a PDF file which is possible from Word 2010 and Word 2013 so in theory, it should be displayed properly in any application supporting PDF file.

[verlyol]

Already here something concrete in the fight against cancer based on immunotherapy.

http://ercbelgium.com/main/

Clinical trials are underway in the USA some patients with glioblastoma grade 4 with a very low life expectancy were saved and are currently alive.


The majority of folding@home anti-cancer projects try to understand why the immune system is ineffective against cancer cells

[Jonazz]

Am I correct when I think these studies are related to Gleevec and Tasigna, two cancer products from Novartis (and thus a form of leukemia)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imatinib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasigna

[verlyol]

This is not quite the same thing Gleevec and Tasigna are tyrosine kinase inhibitor

The Gliovac based on the principle of the vaccine and the aim is to provide an immune response based on allogeneic and syngeneic cells.

This principle is applicable to other cancer.

[Alan C. Lawhon]

I have been studying cancer, so this thread caught my attention. I have a group of database programming friends who I have been trying (without a lot of success) to persuade to join FAH. (Of a group of 20-30 potential [new] folders, I have persuaded one to join - but he's a good one as he has 2-3 machines that he has crunching 24/7.) One of the members of the group recently posted concerning a relative who has come down with cancer. Putting all this together, I posted the following to the message board.

<begin>

Most of you are aware that Gary Kjos and I both participate in Stanford Medical School's "Folding@Home" protein folding project - which is the largest distributed computing project in the world. A question I'm sure some of you have is something along the lines of: "Well what does it mean? What does Folding@Home actually do - and what difference would my participation make?" Good questions - and here are the answers.

Most of us (if not all of us) are aware of a friend or loved one who has been impacted by cancer. One of the diseases that FAH studies and attempts to understand is cancer. Recently there has been a promising discovery in cancer research (involving a specific protein) made possible by a FAH simulation. Here are the details of this breakthrough. (The first link is a "non-technical" explanation of the discovery while the second link provides greater technical detail.)

https://folding.stanford.edu/home/a-dis ... -overview/

https://folding.stanford.edu/home/a-dis ... l-details/

The contributions of unused computer cycles by everyday people (like you and I) is what made this discovery possible. Hopefully, with more participation, scourges like cancer (and other diseases) will one day be a thing of the past.

<end>

Good news like this is what will help us "spread the word" about FAH and hopefully recruit many new folders! (I'll be sure to report the good news if more of my database friends join up.)

Alan

[Alan C. Lawhon]

Here's an interesting article on a new approach to fighting cancer.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/ ... ormation-3

There's a passing reference in this article to "computer technology" and the role it has played in this advance - especially with respect to simulations aiding new drug development. I wonder if folding simulations done by FAH contributed to the development of the AG-221 drug?