"Magic bullets" curing disease?

[MKsurvivin]

I am glad that they began this forum topic, as it is something that I have been fascinated with. I studied synthetic chemistry long long ago, thinking that somehow the synthesis of new magic bullets (to cure cancer) was somehow rate limiting. That was very popular historically..long long ago...So many magic bullets lost their magic eventually, that it almost became a business plan for drug companies...as of course at first one could produce extremely promising data, and if managed properly, it could take 10+ years for all the magic to wear off..and even now the question of whether a few months more of survival is infact statistically significant...enough to charge zillions of dollars...but it is a science that requires a mythological basis set, required for monetarization...especially given that anyone can make money on the way up, but real profeesionals can make money on the way down....Drug development requires a McGuffen...like the maltese falcon, something that dreams are made of...that attracts capital , but the scale of drug development is 10+ years...this type of "wave" is easy to surf..both up and down..

Our group got hammered of course, but not before we got into clinic , now in multiple clinical trials, what evolved as ...well we were working on peptidomimetic "molecular orchestrators"..in that by interfering specifically with gene transcription of processes that seemed to be essential for disease progression, we thought we could "hit" multiple targets, all of which might be part of say a cancer stem cell programming to divide symmetrically...(but curiously only seemed to activate normal stem cells to divide asymmetrically) Anyway, the specificity of drug action seems to lead to very low toxicity...and no/few off target effects...oh well..and the "funny " thing is that i do not know what the status of the drug is currently, as it seems to be in the hands of professionals...
Such is the nature of scientific research, in that one is always developing "models", preying for great Meaning and in medical chemistry always searching for consistency/problems especially when it goes into human testing...I don't want to essentially bore people, but i am familiar with some of the potential problems of "magic bullet theory."maybe this is outside of the Flavian conceptions of Christianity type construct, but to me it does get back to models of reality and how they filter perception of "REALITY".

.oh well..and I also wonder about fundamental chemical theory..and i appreciate that no one really cares about Chemistry...as hypothetically it is not as "sexy" as physically blowing up the world.and destroying all semblence of human civilization .ie disordering a hell of a lot of otherwise ordered matter

 

[MKsurvivin]

somehow..i wish the process of aging did not require making sense of experiential existence...and maybe that is the real basis of heaven/hell dichotomy ...yet

in some ways of thinking death is a disease, with the miracle of science, an artifact of limited access to REAL medicine..I wonder at times is alzheimers is not so much the disease,...and how much of medicine might be changed if death was included as a potential fact of life..and eventuality..
around which real life should be enjoyed..and worshiped..

GD for some reason my machine keeps deleting my thoughs..

but i guess i just wished to discuss how important anti inflammatory "drugs" might be to chronic disease, (aging)and of course , naturally,, potential effectivenes and safety....who cares..PATENT RIGHTS MAKE THE BILLIONS

oh well the ying and yang of medicine is that all people die very naturally...sometimes it is liiving well that becomes problematic..
are
if death becomes just a conditional statistical differential, what sort of statistics are acceptable to control your life experience/behavior??

and of course, the curious fact of life is that drug companies are not devoted to health, but profiting from health...which confuses popular perceptions about non patent able anything....even if they might be relatively natural..and historically safe..

as many solutions to health problems might depend not upon on cures but day to day"wellness"

this also makes "problematic" medicinal PR, as one does not always know if PR is profit defined or actually really healthy " helpful.." as there seem to be too much BIG money speaking on public airways ...defining ..well of course it is all SCIENCE..!!

 

[MKsurvivin]

i guess it is perhaps the same problem..in that many people really believe in WAR, and historically in my lifetime the war party is ahead...Yes Peace guys can preach, but if 'p,eace" is not patent-able how can anyone make money?..even though Peace may be really really "natural"..so to speak.

,.curiously..in america,many concepts are taught to youth, but in the end, maximizing profits corporately might plot positively with "success".. no matter how it is done..as it might an underlying religion all its own...and with 911 corporate media orchestration, exactly what is the value of True health Truth, if it is not somehow monetized... into the grander scheme of corporate economics...as people live and die naturally, but corporate prfits require proper systems of bookkeeping. and banking of course..

 

[Richard Stanley]

the curious fact of life is that drug companies are not devoted to health, but profiting from health

Or did you really mean: "profiting from disease"?

I sure wish you had spent your time studying biofilms. But as with everything else, as you've mentioned money drives it all. At least with biofilms, now general (non-medical) industry and the military are interested in them, so maybe it'll get somewhere. There is one pharma company specializing in them, but so far they have only claimed success with sheep as far as sinuses are concerned.

 

[MKsurvivin]

ncally seems to be more hype, and also more increased drug prices..not bc they are making better drugs, but bc the underlying economics of the scam require more and ore cash ..ot

Or did you really mean: "profiting from disease"?

I sure wish you had spent your time studying biofilms. But as with everything else, as you've mentioned money drives it all. At least with biofilms, now general (non-medical) industry and the military are interested in them, so maybe it'll get somewhere. There is one pharma company specializing in them, but so far they have only claimed success with sheep as far as sinuses are concerned.

thanks
..i guess the terms disease/health are ying yang...type things like war peace...I appreciate your suggestion...maybe one profits from war/terror/ though of course peace stability are related..

you use the term biofilms in terms of bacterial infections?..anyway, I will pubmed it to see if I better understand your context...as the world of med chemists seems to revolve aroud properties of matter in space and time, and order/disorder...mechanistically in how chemical living machines work.

 

[MKsurvivin]

i guess one cannot really profit from telling healthy people they are healthy...however, if you suggest they are risking disease death, and need to modify behavior then maybe there might be sales..
it is also curious that i might be overly fascinated by economics, but this is only due to being either newly semiretired unemployed after 40 years ..
as that it is confusing exactly how much Truth is worth? given its rarity in the popular media..as
i also spent years studying medicine, but now wonder, as death might seem to be a natural process,....we never studied this relationship...as if by magic,

the power of ideas!!! one could live forever if one just found the True ideas...but directed ideas..towards maximizing life..

 

[Richard Stanley]

you use the term biofilms in terms of bacterial infections?..anyway, I will pubmed it to see if I better understand your context...as the world of med chemists seems to revolve aroud properties of matter in space and time, and order/disorder...mechanistically in how chemical living machines work.

They are communities of otherwise common bacteria or fungus (frequently mixed and symbiotic) that have a gene shared with algae. That gene produces a polysacharide / protein film matrix which is impenetrable by such as antibiotics, no genetic resistance needed. This is the glue that algae use to hold onto rocks in a fast mountain stream. They are the oldest lifeform and the one you are most familiar with is dental plaque.

Ironically, my infection started after hiking in and around mountain streams and lakes, with lots of algae in bloom. I was on Proton Pump Inhibitors, for a bad case of heartburn (rare for me), and in the course of a few hours developed a bad intestinal infection (algae green in color). It soon found its way into my sinuses, but because it looked nothing like a 'real' sinus infection for the cookie cutter doctors, nothing much happened medically until I had to take chemical matters into my own experimental (the Sorcerer's Apprentice) hands, for better and worse.

Doubly ironic, the LA Times had an article a week after I got back from my hiking vacation saying one should be very careful taking PPIs because the acid in your stomach is essential to warding off intestinal infections.

But biofilms are becoming more problematic all around, because we have been killing off some many of their otherwise genetically identical 'planktonic' (the scientific term) cousins with antibiotics and fungicidals, and thus leaving a greater percentage of biofilm in place.

Montana State University is the leading institution studying them, but the rest of the research world and doctors are just starting to learn about them.

 

[MKsurvivin]

thanks...I will give this some consideration, as the general topics are familiar somewhat...
we of course spend a lot of time thinking about the mechanistic defenses to infection, and relationships to inflammatory processes, chronic disease..and a
aging...it is amazing how many diseases tend to correlate with aging....if you live long enough.

 

[MKsurvivin]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/more-details-emerge-fateful-french-drug-trial

a curious report on a disastrous drug trial
The study was halted on Monday, and all six patients who had taken the drug were hospitalized; one is brain dead, four others have neurological symptoms of varying severity, while one is under observation but without symptoms, neurologist Gilles Edan of the University of Rennes Hospital Center said yesterday. MRI imaging has shown "deep, necrotic and hemorrhagic lesions in the brain" of the patients, Edan said.

 

[Richard Stanley]

It seems that to some extent a lot of this goes on that gets swept under the rug, buried in the statistics or some other means. Obviously some people are disposed to have bad reactions to certain chemical combinations. There is a very popular hair shampoo today that is getting bad press because apparently a certain percentage of people have had rather dramatic reactions to some ingredient in the product. That ingredient has been banned in certain countries and therefore the shampoo MFR has made a version of the product without that ingredient. Gee, what's that about?

Same thing with mercury in tooth fillings.

And carageenan (agar) in processed foods. Seems it gives a lot of people (including me) symptoms of Crohn's Disease, as scientists give it to lab mice to induce intestinal ulcers -- so that they can study how to cure -- intestinal ulcers. Funny no?

BTW, a Japanese scientist recently announced that the agar preparation used in Petri dishes worldwide is not optimal, from the beginning of its use. And that if optimal, it could grow microorganisms much, much faster and thus be more useful and less costly(?) in diagnosing infections and such. I'm wondering if it would also make it easier to culture biofilm communities, as they do not otherwise culture well except in their preferred medium, like a live host.