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.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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