Comments on Next Big Future: LIFT cancer clinical trials

Please remove posts referencing the treatment of C...

2009-06-01T11:51:04.032-07:00

Please remove posts referencing the treatment of Chris Heward and Kronos. Chris passed away earlier this year.

"Ethical Review"...hate to say it, but it looks li...

2008-12-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

"Ethical Review"...hate to say it, but it looks like big Pharma and/or the FDA is getting involved. If this approach were to work, look at the billions the cancer "research" infrastructure would stand to lose. This procedure needs to be tested---too many people have been lost. How do I donate to Kronos!

Kronos Lab LIFT trial effort

Please help us save the life of a valued member of the scientific community. All it takes is blood from a qualified donor.

You qualify if you:

- Live in Florida, driving distance to Boynton Beach
- Are 18-50 years of age
- Have an A+, A-, O+ or O- blood type. We can determine blood type with a simple blood collection if you do not know.
- Have never been diagnosed with cancer
- Have never been deferred from giving blood or blood products in the past (due to health)
- Have never had a blood transfusion
- Do not have an infectious disease
- Are not currently pregnant or breast feeding
- Have not had a multiple birth pregnancy (twins)
- Do not have a history of autoimmune disease, coronary artery disease, clotting in your arteries or veins, inflammation in your eyes, or sickle cell disease or one of its variants
- Do not have uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, or active peptic ulcer disease

What is involved for the Donor?
- Pre-screening: Complete screening form via phone or e-mail to determine eligibility.
- Visit 1: Consent process and standard blood collection to determine donor/recipient match.
- Visit 2: Physical exam and standard blood collection for repeat testing.
- Visit 3: Preparation for granulocyte (white blood cell) collection.
- Visit 4: Granulocyte (white blood cell) collection (Apheresis—similar to plasma donation). See link below for additional information on the apheresis process.

There is nothing experimental about the blood collections or the apheresis procedure. Donors will be donating their blood, not receiving any blood products or experimental treatments. Visits will be conducted in Boynton Beach, FL.

Qualified donors will be reimbursed for their time and travel?

Visit Compensation Approximate Time Commitment
visit 1 $50 30 minutes
visit 2 $50 30 minutes
visit 3 $100 1 hour
visit 4 $350 3.5 hours

My understanding is that the clinical trials have ...

2008-12-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

My understanding is that the clinical trials have been delayed into 2009. I think there is some kind of ethical review going on.

There is a private effort to apply the technique and also to save Chris Heward, who runs the Kronos Lab.

Go read about the private effort and sign up for it if you qualify.

I would like to know why the page http://www1.wfub...

2008-11-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

I would like to know why the page http://www1.wfubmc.edu/LIFT/ is off the air and if the clinical test
already began.

regards, Marconi Jackson Silva Brandão.

Hello,
I would like to know what is the status ...

2008-09-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

Hello,
I would like to know what is the status of the study. Is it working so far? Please keep us informed about the course of this trial.
Thank you.

You are right that it is very exciting research. I...

2008-06-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

You are right that it is very exciting research. It is also something that should be worked on by more people. People working on figuring out the mechanisms and Cui working on the simple transfers.

For humans there could be more complications with the procedures but even with more typing and matching to prevent or limit rejection there is still high potential. Plus there was other work where a persons own immune system got boosted with a bunch of replicated cells. It seems a lot can be done with supercharging either our own immune system or transferring supercharged immune systems from others.

There is also a lot of lives to be saved with cheap and effective early stage detection.

It seems like a fairly obvious approach to try, if...

2008-06-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

It seems like a fairly obvious approach to try, if your goal is to cure cancer - look for mice who don't get or resist cancer, figure out at least superficially why they don't, and see if that factor can be transferred to others. It feels like something that should have been tried 30 or 40 years ago.

Am I missing something here, or have cancer scientists been too focused on "understanding" cancer, and not sufficiently focused on "curing it" - even as they use "the hunt for the cure" to draw huge public support and funding?

Frankly, I was angered by the line to the effect that "if he had been an immunologist, he would have thrown the mouse away". I think anyone who has lost someone to cancer would be, once they understand what that means. It's as if Flemming had said "Darn, that fungus is killing the staphylococci in my petri dishes - rats, it ruined my experiment."

Even in the article you link to, we get an example of a scientist saying "don't get too excited, they don't understand why it works". Shouldn't I get excited that - even if it doesn't work in humans - it could be closely examined to understand why it works in mice, and maybe transfer that understanding to a cancer cure for humans?

For years I've been wondering why we've had several generations of intensive cancer research, with relatively little result. Maybe it's because they've all had an attitude that is the perverse inverse of the old joke about the drunk looking for his keys "where the lights's better"?

I.e. it sounds as if they've refused to believe that there might be any solution that doesn't first require full understanding of how cancer works. "If it sounds too good to be true, we won't bother checking if it is, lest our collegues in science look down on us for our naivete."