The most popular news item on Yahoo yesterday was a Reuters article about a potential new cancer drug. Intrigued, I read the article but couldn’t understand why it was news.

The article is a cutesy account of how the researcher, Katherine Schaefer, had mistakenly added massive amounts of a PPAR-gamma modulator to a cancer cell line and killed them. That apparently led Schaefer to test this substance as a cancer drug in various other cancer cell lines and in mice.

As most biologists can tell you, almost anything added in massive amounts will kill cells. It’s fortunate that this one does seem promising, but let’s be realistic. So far, it seems effective in mice, which are a far, far cry from humans. Even if everything works well, a less than 10% chance, it will be at least 15 years before a drug version sees the light of day.

This particular article was published in the International Journal of Cancer—and not in the fictitious International Cancer Research as the Reuters article said—but a quick PubMed search reveals that Schaefer first published a link between PPAR-gamma and cancer in 2005. So even that aspect wasn’t new.

Although scientists do often hype their findings, Schaefer herself seems perfectly reasonable. When I told her I was surpised her paper had been covered so widely, she said, “You and me both.” Apparently, this was the work of an energetic PR person at her university who, I must say, deserves to be congratulated. She spun the story admirably well as a tale of lucky accidents, a wire service journalist bit and bingo! I could say something here about the dangers of over-hyping science, but I’ll restrain myself.

At least the publicity has already had one good outcome. Schaeffer says she’s had emails from people she hasn’t heard from in 15 years or more. Happy accident indeed!