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!
Apporva, very good post. You raised the questions very accurately. This is exactly what John Shulton asked in his Nobel Lecture. He called such hypes as “Science by Press Releases”. Being in an academic envionrnment, I see every day how Profs are calling the local journalists to tell about their great findings, which are going revolutionalize the Medicine and Technology . I have seen this very much in US compared to Europe (at least in Sweden, where I did my Ph.D.) – Pradeep
Dear Colleagues:
Talk about happy accidents. Scientists at UC Berkeley were studying the anti-cancer properties of Diindolylmethane (DIM) from broccoli when they accidentally noticed a protein being produced. They looked up the protein and to their delight, it was Interferon-Gamma Receptors.
DIM (dietary ingredient in broccoli) is a potent activator of Interferon-Gamma Receptors with potent anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer properties.
This is a fascinating accident to have occured, especially in light of all of the epidemiological studies linking broccoli consumption to a lower risk of cancer and other diseases. More information about this is available at:
https://www.activamune.com/
https://www.diindolylmethane.org/