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Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats

780 points · 805 comments · raahelb

modeless · 1790190319 · focus · HN ↗
It's clear Dario believes that the solution to AI's PR problem is to cure cancer. Or invent other revolutionary medical treatments. They're going to heavily promote every step along the way no matter how small or far away from commercialization they are, like this one.
No doubt that curing cancer would help, but I think the timeline might be a little too long. Even RSI AGI will not be able to get new medical treatments to market instantly. Real world testing takes a long time and is an unavoidable part of the process.
1. JoeOfTexas · 1790190568 · focus · HN ↗
  Cancer can be cured in a lot of cases, its just so damn expensive and the treatment is beyond torturous that some patients cannot handle it. Stem cells are amazing. But we need cheaper technology to replicate them into the cancer destroyers they need to be, as well as find ways to ease the pain of that internal battle.
  1. Aboutplants · 1790190673 · focus · HN ↗
    Please tell me more about these “cures” you speak of. Because to my knowledge, yes we are good at getting patients into remission, we do not have “cures” Coupled with the fact that treatment is often life altering in and of itself
    toomuchtodo · 1790190740 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells" rel="nofollow">https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t...
    D-Machine · 1790237162 · focus · HN ↗
    CAR-T is not a cure in any sense of the word, in part because "cure" is just not a scientifically valid concept in oncology. I would know, CAR-T saved my life, but this was at great cost and is not even remotely close to a guarantee <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669
    victorbjorklund · 1790191062 · focus · HN ↗
    Semantics. Cancer is uncontrolled growth of cells. Treating it is killing/removing the cancer cells. Problem of course is you are never sure if you got all of them. If you got all of them you are “cured”. If you didn’t you are not cured in case the remaining cells manage to grow and spread again. We don’t talk about “cure” because of course it is impossible to verify if 100% is gone or not.
    jobs_throwaway · 1790191959 · focus · HN ↗
    Why is it 'of course impossible'? Couldn't we someday have nanobots or other tech that could screen all your cells and be able to indicate whether any cancerous cells remain?
    SpicyLemonZest · 1790193192 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    smolder · 1790193234 · focus · HN ↗
    If we were able to find cancer cells with a precision down to 1 cell, killing them would be trivial. It's possible we will get there someday. I think bioengineering is the most likely route. I.e., design a virus to specifically target the type of cancer cell you mean to eradicate.
    dekhn · 1790195792 · focus · HN ↗
    Strictly speaking, no impossible from our understanding of physics, but also an enormous scientific and engineering problem. research into that would take away from people working on more reasonable approaches today.
    asdff · 1790206554 · focus · HN ↗
    We already have these nanobots in our bodies. This is the entire rub with cancer. There is amazingly strong selective pressure to evolve ways to avoid our existing nanobots. Artificial nanobots would be no different in this respect.
    D-Machine · 1790237090 · focus · HN ↗
    Correct. The people here saying CAR-T is a cure have no clue at all what they are talking about, and I say this as someone that is only alive right now because of CAR-T <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49827669
    sourcinnamon · 1790191167 · focus · HN ↗
    In addition to the other comment mentioning CAR-T therapies, we also have therapies based on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)
    <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2024/fda-amtagvi-til-therapy-melanoma" rel="nofollow">https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2024...
    <a href="https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/2/e000848" rel="nofollow">https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/2/e000848 (careful: Figure 1 can be very graphical, but it shows the huge positive impact of this therapy)
    We also have therapies based on monoclonal recombinant antibodies conjugated with chemotherapeutics. Simply put, we can produce antibodies that are specific for markers present in the surface of cancer cells, and we can attach drugs that can kill those cells. The antibody part is what makes this type of therapy very effective (you target only cancer cells, and not healthy cells) and also very expensive.
    D-Machine · 1790237028 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no world in which CAR-T is a "cure", especially since this isn't even a scientific term in oncology. We generally say if there is no relapse after 5 years post-treatment, then any cancer is a "new" cancer, so 5 years of remission is the closest thing to a "cure", but this isn't a scientific term.
    Also, we barely have more than 3 years data for CAR-T for most cancers. And even still, the survival rates aren't great, in many cases 50% compared to e.g. <20% for previous chemo-immunotherapies plus marrow transplants. And this ignores how massively immunocompromised CAR-T leaves you (for at least a year in close to half of cases, but maybe even permanently, in perhaps as high as 10% of cases, at least for some lymphomas).
    I say this as a person that is only alive because of CAR-T treatment 1.5 years ago.
    ransom1538 · 1790191213 · focus · HN ↗
    Burn (radiation). Cut. Poison (chemo). Your picks for cancer. IMHO Eat less. Remove all sugar and vitamins. Go a week without food. Give your body time to kill the weak cancer cells before they grow exponentially.
    Glyptodon · 1790192310 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't know about "cured" but I've been cancer free for something like ~27 years. With childhood cancers some of them have very high rates of "cure," but it is true that the impact of the treatments (at that time at least) follows you for life in various ways. The more modern immunotherapies and such seem potentially much better than chemo if they can be turned into successful and consistent approaches.

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