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• manning walker – June 29 2008

  Responding to Eva Vertes’ TED talk:
  If muscular tissue is cancer resistant due to the fact that it has learned to cope with constant damage, this would have developed evolutionarily over the course of millions of years.
  If this is an evolutionary adaptation, than a comparison across many species would likely indicate that the longer a cell type has been exposed to a type of damage, the greater the degree of resistance.
  If damage to muscles occurs from use and activity, it would suggest that our other tissue types have been dealing with the causes of damage for a shorter period of time, evolutionarily speaking.
  The types of damage that cause cancers of the internal organs and nervous structures can be traced by archeology to specific regions, conditions, and even time frames.
  Theoretically, it is possible to trace every cancer type back to a specific first known occurrence.
  It may be possible to prove the first occurrences of lung cancer during the industrial revolution, or the origin of stomach cancer back to dietary changes at a time such as the advent of industrial farming, etc.

• Linda Velasquez – March 1 2008

  This is a comment on the speaker blurb for Ms. Vertes, not on the brain cancer idea. I was very disappointed when I read "If smoking can cause lung cancer, and drinking can cause liver cancer, is it possible that cancer is a direct result of injury? If so, could cancer be caused by the body's own repair system going awry?" with the strong implication that it is a new, even groundbreaking, idea. It is not a new idea in the least! It is the core idea of most theories I've encountered about how laetrile works. Why is it being treated as a new idea?

• Linda Velasquez – March 1 2008

  This is a comment on the speaker blurb for Ms. Vertes, not on the brain cancer idea. I was very disappointed when I read "If smoking can cause lung cancer, and drinking can cause liver cancer, is it possible that cancer is a direct result of injury? If so, could cancer be caused by the body's own repair system going awry?" with the strong implication that it is a new, even groundbreaking, idea. It is not a new idea in the least! It is the core idea of most theories I've encountered about how laetrile works. Why is it being treated as a new idea?

• Ralph Bauer – January 1 2008

  What a wonderful young lady! She seems to be on the right track...her findings support Dr. Hamer's hypothesis (http://www.newmedicine.ca/interview.php).
  If she keeps asking questions about causation, she should eventually come to the emotional basis for disease; not all trauma is physical! Most of it is not! This will then explain the locations of cytokines as indicative of relevant emotional events in the life path, with symbology becoming a new raison d'etre for the cancer. Of course, she will have to look higher up the tree than the body, which is only the low hanging (and obvious) fruit of the life.
  I think her finding on the relative immunity of muscle cells to metastases may point her to the role of the muscles in dispelling emotional insults. They respond in the now, and tend to not hold on to the sadnesses and fears of a life any longer than a bruise lasts, perhaps only a few days. So they don't become likely suspects for cancer, as do the other organ systems with their much longer time frames.
  The heart, of course, stores suppressed emotion until later, when the spirit can deal with it, and so is unlikely to suffer from cancer. Its etheric substance is similar to Teflon in that respect.
  All in all, a wonderful presentation! I am filled with hope.

• TEDBlog Reader – October 30 2007

  I am not a scientist; however, I really enjoyed Eva’s presentation. I was thinking that, if we could identify the signal (probably electrical) that attracted the metastasizing cancer cell to an injured area of the body, then we could produce a device, implanted in the body, that would send out an attractor signal to lure all roving cancer cells moving through the body. Once in the device the cancer cell could be identified by the same device and differentiated from helpful repairing stem cells. At that point the device would hold onto, destroy, or exit out the pre-cancerous cells and let the healing stem cells go back into the body. If this were possible, the procedure could be done prior to any surgery to totally prevent the, now localized, cancer from metastasizing. If we could stop cancer from metastasizing, we would go a long way toward preventing the worst part of cancer.
  
  I think that cells communicate in a particular way and, if we could learn the language, we would probably have many great breakthroughs. Keep up the good work. If this idea is totally ridiculous, I apologize. I felt better relaying this idea that just keeping it to myself.

• Urgelt – February 24 2007

  TypePad truncated the link I furnished, so here's a shorter link that also works: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971

• Urgelt – February 24 2007

  The hypothetical involvement of stem cells, differentiation biochemistry and response to tissue damage in the development of neoplasms is intriguing. We know that carcinogens cause cancer, but I think she's right, we don't know the precise biochemical mechanisms by which they do, and our assumptions could lead us astray. I'll toss in another wrinkle. Work at the University of Alberta in Canada suggests an awfully important involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer cells. Mitochondria regulate apoptosis. Cancer cells seem to inhibit mitochondrial function and switch to distributed glycolysis, incidentally inactivating apoptosis. We might therefore think of cancer as a mutation of the (partially differentiated stem?) cell which causes it to forget its ancient symbiosis with mitochondria, which it requires if it is to be a "responsible cellular citizen" in an organism. If you switch on mitochondria in cancer cells with the drug DCA, the cells lose their immortality and die. Here's a link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html

• John Feland – November 2 2006

  I was listening to Eva's talk on the way into work today when a crazy idea hit me. One of the insights that Eva talks about is the skeletal muscle use of myogenin? to differentiate cancer cells into the muscle cells required to repair the damage the cancer is responding to. I began thinking that there might be similar compounds in other organs that would help differentiate cancer cells into the appropriate cells for repairing damage to the targeted organs. Could it be that carcinogens somehow bond to these compounds and inhibit or modify how these compounds differentiate cancer cells for repair. The organ is not getting the repair they requested is still asking for help, stimulating the further need for cancer cells to repair the damage, promoting the growth of the tumor. Could it be that there is not carcinogen that impacts myogenin? or there is no easy pathway to the myogenin? in the muscles. This could be something that is already well understood and as someone not skilled in the art I just don't know about it. But I felt a need to share it someplace...

• Sayed – October 8 2006

  She's my hero.
  
  When I's a kid I had thoughts about cancer being wonder cells. Being a computer guy never had a chance to be in this world of science. And so, couldn't be more pleased with anybody than this, cuz, she proves it for me.
  
  May you have the desires of your heart and have peace.
  
  Sayed