Frederik C schreef:
Lees, luister Iplex & INSM waar nodig en de komende 46 uur geven genoeg stof voor speculatie & spijtgevoelens (...Had ik maar...)
www.npr.org/ramfiles/980508.totn.02.ram Hour One: Examining a cancer "breakthrough."
Before last weekend, the words "angiostatin" and "endostatin" weren't known to many people outside of a fairly select group of cancer researchers and some cancer patients that closely follow current research. But that was before the weekend.
On Sunday, the New York Times published a front-page article about research into treating cancer with angiostatin and endostatin. The article touched off a flurry of media coverage about the two anti-tumor drugs - which, while they show impressive results in mice, have not been tested in humans and will not be for years to come.
The drugs, which were discovered in the lab of Drs. Judah Folkman and Timothy O'Reilly at Children's Hospital in Boston, work by preventing a process called "angiogenesis" that allows new blood vessels to form. Without a blood supply, the theory goes, tumors cannot survive. Tumors in mice tested with the two compounds have shrunk, even disappeared, and not returned.
circulatory system
Angiostatin and endostatin work by
stopping the formation of the blood
vessels that feed tumors.
But even Dr. Folkman, one of the leading proponents of antiangiogenic drugs, cautions that the medications have been tested only in mice, that human trials are years away, and that even if the compounds are found to be useful, they would only be used to supplement existing radiation and chemotherapy treatments - not replace them.
So why, then, has there been such an uproar over these drugs? What made prices of stock in EntreMed, a company working to capitalize on the two drugs, go crazy on Monday? Is it a testament to the hopes of cancer patients, desperate for a cure? Or does it just show the power of the New York Times to influence world opinions of what is "news?"
On this hour of Science Friday - a look at the intersection of science, the media, and the markets.
Tracking the story in the media, on the net, and in the markets...
www.sciencefriday.com/pages/1998/May/...Geluk, F.