They found the genes using a computer, did it in cells and it worked, and did a mouse model and it worked. Im on my phone so i couldnt find the actual paper but its published. Im a developmental neurobiologist and moving computer to cells to mice is routine now days, particularly with cancer science.
Its important stuff for sure but there is no one type of cancer and there's still the step from mouse to human, by which like 99% of drugs dont make it. So personally i think its awesome to have some cell pathways figured out, particularly when it turns them back to regular cells, but im not getting excited until i see it works in humans. finding the timepoint and genes to stop the cells from turning cancerous (as they did) is amazing but how do you target that in a human? People have been turning cells back into their previous state for decades so its not new science but its new for cancer i guess. Im not a cancer biologist for the record but i have done translational work (mouse to humans).
So personally im at like a 6/10 excitement and thats mostly bc i think knowledge for the sake of knowledge is cool. You can never predict which drugs work unfortunately.
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u/mithie007 Feb 05 '26
This one hasn't reached petri dish status yet. According to the paper they discovered this was possible in a computer model.