http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26677869-3102,00.html

Very interesting article...

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,26677869-3102,00.html

Very interesting article...

I agree!!!

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

And it takes all of seven years to come to a fruitful conclusion. Not very inspiring stuff, this human incompetency with regards to really important things in life. Oh well.

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

And it takes all of seven years to come to a fruitful conclusion. Not very inspiring stuff, this human incompetency with regards to really important things in life. Oh well.

I think it takes that long to prove the old Medical axiom 'first do not harm'! I would hate for them to rush a drug to market that then does more harm than good, aka Thalidomide! Remember all the 'flipper babies' after they gave it to thousands of pregnant moms?! Yes I too wish there were a faster way, but Cancer did not pop up in a day. Maybe that is something for a future Boinc project, ways to speed up clinical trials!

"Maybe that is something for a future Boinc project, ways to speed up clinical trials!"

Most definitely. It especially seems like a part of medicine that has had basically zero real progress ever since the conception of the whole field. Very, very frustrating.

Highly interesting, we have just discussed this topic on my team's (BOINC@Poland) forum. :)

"Maybe that is something for a future Boinc project, ways to speed up clinical trials!"

Most definitely. It especially seems like a part of medicine that has had basically zero real progress ever since the conception of the whole field. Very, very frustrating.

I'm sorry Otto, I think I don't understand you.

What do you mean by saying "basically zero progress" and what kind of progress would like to see in a formal methodology of science? Double blind test is a double blind test. It requires patients, researchers and time. Sorry, welcome to the real life.

I'm discussing the method as I don't think you were saying about the oncology itself, as the progress over there is clearly visible.

Regarding BOINC and clinical trials: being honest, I don't imagine how we could speed it by BOINC. Certainly not by using our computing power. What we certainly can do, and try i.e. in Rosetta, is facilitating a basic research and finding new drug candidates. This is a lot already. :)

And regarding "magic therapies"... one must remember that the world is full of hoaxes, swindles, cynical frauders, bigheads, greed and clearly crazy people. What is more, we humans tend to make mistakes. This are sad reasons why we must protect ourselves and stick to the scientific method. This is why this process tends that long.

Maybe it could be a bit shorter, probably you can fight for an experimental therapy - but the clinical tests need to be done.

Having said that, I'm sure the modern pharma/health care system must be changed, especially in the U.S. - but it needs to be based more on science. Not less. :)

I'm just tired of the limitations of human competency to solve problems in a fast and efficient manner, instead of fumbling in the dark for eons - ONLY because of the limitations of human intelligence/competency. How fast would an extremely advanced AGI solve basically all of our medical problems? So clearly spinning 7 (or 10 or 15) years into a "reasonable" timeframe is masquerading the deeply hurting truth of human helplessness in the face of greater problems - all of while hundreds of thousands of people will die BECAUSE OF THAT - human incompetency, nothing else. If you claim otherwise, be my guest. I guess the lack of outrage at such timescales where there is complete knowledge of the huge amount of people that will die is the result of resignation - that we, as humanity, simply can't do any better. And looking at that truth in the eye is like looking the devil straight in the eye. Utter dread, horror.

I guess this comes out as kind of misanthropic but I'm just so sick and f*****g tired of my own and humanity's incompetency, helplessness etc. And yes, I know, my rage/frustration/etc is completely impotent, it changes nothing. Just releasing some steam, as per always.

I'm just tired of the limitations of human competency to solve problems in a fast and efficient manner, instead of fumbling in the dark for eons - ONLY because of the limitations of human intelligence/competency. How fast would an extremely advanced AGI solve basically all of our medical problems? So clearly spinning 7 (or 10 or 15) years into a "reasonable" timeframe is masquerading the deeply hurting truth of human helplessness in the face of greater problems - all of while hundreds of thousands of people will die BECAUSE OF THAT - human incompetency, nothing else. If you claim otherwise, be my guest. I guess the lack of outrage at such timescales where there is complete knowledge of the huge amount of people that will die is the result of resignation - that we, as humanity, simply can't do any better. And looking at that truth in the eye is like looking the devil straight in the eye. Utter dread, horror.

I guess this comes out as kind of misanthropic but I'm just so sick and f*****g tired of my own and humanity's incompetency, helplessness etc. And yes, I know, my rage/frustration/etc is completely impotent, it changes nothing. Just releasing some steam, as per always.

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization

Petronius (c. AD 27-66)

---

Having said that, I'm sure the modern pharma/health care system must be changed, especially in the U.S. - but it needs to be based more on science. Not less. :)

The US Health Care is not broken to the point it doesn't work at all, it does work for alot of people, it just doesn't work for EVERYONE! Personally I think the solution is to treat like auto insurance, let every company compete for my business. The Geico gecko is everywhere in every State saying he can lower your auto insurance rates, why not let Health Insurance Companies compete across State lines too?! Currently a company must have a presence in a State to offer care there, why? Who cares what doctor I go to as long as I am happy and the doctor gets paid? When Lloyd's of London insured my car way back when did they care where I drove it, no they just said they would provide me x coverage for y dollars. My neighbor has a vacation house, Lloyd's of London insures it, the house is physically in North Carolina, USA. He lives in Virginia, USA, Llyod's is in England, who cares? An agreement was reached, money was paid and the house is insured! We do not need to 'overhaul' the system, we need to fix the broken parts! Part of the US's problem is all the illegal immigrants that get hurt and need medical care, a major problem that will continue to get worse until immigration is also fixed.

We have gotten off topic here...the problem with Clinical Trials is they are rigid Scientific methods that have shown they do work in the past. Maybe someone really smart needs to take a look at what computers can do to help that go faster, part of what they are testing is drug interactions and if the drug really works. Why can't that be done in the lab or in a computer simulation? We can simulate how to go to the moon and even drive around on Mars for months at a time. We can even have someone from more than a thousand miles away fly a plane and kill someone from that plane and that pilot never has to actually be in that plane to make all this happen. Maybe we need to put some people together that don't normally get together and talk this thru, Scientists and computer geeks I mean!

Hi guys,

regarding the frustration - I think I know a bit of what you mean, Otto. Arrogance and cluelessness one can meet every day, Dilbertian jobs and wasted efforts, apathy and bureaucracy you can see anywhere from capitalistic US to the last communist states, pseudoscience and ignorance, political, cultural, religious fixations, and many, many more...

However, people are people and Rome wasn't built in a day. We have made many mistakes and we will make many more - but it only says we should only try harder.

In weird communist times one of Polish cabaret singers made a song "Róbmy swoje" (let's do our stuff) addressed to inteligentsia and I think it remains valid.
Regardless of actions of all the other people you have your own life, duties and path of conduct. I believe the English-speaking world knows this thought at least from another Pole, Joseph Conrad. :)

That's all from Polish Culture 101 now. ;) So let's do our stuff - crunch BOINC, bug test, make science popular. There is a long way ahead - we have made great achievements but who knows for how long will we preserve them in the future and what happens within next one hundred years? Think of it, XIX century men of Europe considered themselves as so modern but they would hardly understand our "western world" as of today. :) The future is now and yet it escapes like the Zeno's Achillean tortoise. :) It may be a reason to be in dispair, it may be a reason to feel excitement and fun.

Regarding the health care in US - AFAIR it asks for some tweakings and it's not only the "treat all the people" issue. One example: AFAIK still in US, Australia etc. if the branded medicine is prescribed, it cannot be changed by a patient/pharmacist even if a proper generic (and far cheaper) drug is available. This is an outrageous waste and invitation to corruption (sponsoring practicioners to win their prescriptions). In EU any patient has a right to ask in a pharma for the cheapest generic equivalent.

Health insurances is a big business, like pharma, health care, health research or health law suits and they are worth of reconsideration.

Finally, regarding the clinical trials and BOINC: as far as I know Rosetta and other usable methods are far from precision to replace the trials. They are non-deterministic and base on still not fully developed algorythms. Thankfully, presently they can give, each year better, drug candidates for further testing.
Even if our computing power and methods improve enough to have high quality protein-protein docking etc. to have perfect drug candidates, it still does not solve zillions of potential interactions which would need to be checked - and that's a lot of computing power.

Summing up, for me it's a very distant shot. However, "perfect" or "near-perfect" drug candidates would be great enough to bring us a new level of medicine.

Nevertheless once again, BOINC platform had an ambition to be not only a "computing power sharing network" but a whole "creative minds in cooperation network". And that could bring some hope, just as you say!

Best regards ladies and gentlemen,
a.m.

I think the main way that DC helps advance medicine is that computer models can be used in many cases to predict toxicity, and therefore identify things that are NOT going to work much earlier in the process. This saves you from attempting clinical trials on ideas that will (at least according to the model) eventually fail to be safe.

I know that sounds negative, but if you consider that you must try 1000 things to make a lightbulb (or a cure), and you can iterate through that list of things faster, then that is progress towards the final answer.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Hi guys,

Regarding the health care in US - AFAIR it asks for some tweakings and it's not only the "treat all the people" issue. One example: AFAIK still in US, Australia etc. if the branded medicine is prescribed, it cannot be changed by a patient/pharmacist even if a proper generic (and far cheaper) drug is available. This is an outrageous waste and invitation to corruption (sponsoring practicioners to win their prescriptions). In EU any patient has a right to ask in a pharma for the cheapest generic equivalent.
Health insurances is a big business, like pharma, health care, health research or health law suits and they are worth of reconsideration.
Best regards ladies and gentlemen, a.m.

I have an HMO, Kaiser Permanente, and if my Doctor gives me a drug that also has a generic equivalent I have the right to ask the Pharmacist to ask the Doctor if the generic is okay. Sometimes the Doctor says yes, sometimes she says no. When she says no I then question her at my next appointment and will insist on the generic if there is no medical reason not to get the generic. Yes I come prepared with my research from the net and yes I also come with an open mind, sometimes generics can use fillers that are not always compatible with other things we take. In 2 cases so far I have changed the Doctors mind and gotten the generic, in one case she changed mine.

I think the main way that DC helps advance medicine is that computer models can be used in many cases to predict toxicity, and therefore identify things that are NOT going to work much earlier in the process. This saves you from attempting clinical trials on ideas that will (at least according to the model) eventually fail to be safe.

I know that sounds negative, but if you consider that you must try 1000 things to make a lightbulb (or a cure), and you can iterate through that list of things faster, then that is progress towards the final answer.

I think this is an important point as well! I also think that given the current level of the computer models, maybe some research should be done to figure out how to improve these models. I am guessing that is also part of what Rosetta is doing.

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

well i totally hate asparagus but wats the harm?

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

And it takes all of seven years to come to a fruitful conclusion. Not very inspiring stuff, this human incompetency with regards to really important things in life. Oh well.

I think it takes that long to prove the old Medical axiom 'first do not harm'! I would hate for them to rush a drug to market that then does more harm than good, aka Thalidomide! Remember all the 'flipper babies' after they gave it to thousands of pregnant moms?! Yes I too wish there were a faster way, but Cancer did not pop up in a day. Maybe that is something for a future Boinc project, ways to speed up clinical trials!

wait, i think it did pop up in a day (or maybe it was always there)

"likely to take up to seven years, by the Therapeutic Goods Administration."

SEVEN years??? Absolutely farcical. Scores of people die every day because of cancers and it takes 7 m***********g years to get a radically better therapy on the market? Absolutely ludicrous, it really is.

Medicine is a technology-enthusiast's parallel universe of unending masochism.

I got an email, probably totally fake and spam but since I have no idea here goes the gist of it....take 4 tablespoons of liquefied Asparagus twice a day and your cancer will go away! Supposedly this has been known since the 1740's but the AMA doesn't believe in this so the Chemical people haven't pursued it. According to the email it has to do with the "histones" in the plant. As I said for all I know it was sent by a grower wishing to increase his profit, but you never know until it is researched.

well i totally hate asparagus but wats the harm?

VERY stinky and green pee!!!!

Regarding the health care in US - AFAIR it asks for some tweakings and it's not only the "treat all the people" issue. One example: AFAIK still in US, Australia etc. if the branded medicine is prescribed, it cannot be changed by a patient/pharmacist even if a proper generic (and far cheaper) drug is available. This is an outrageous waste and invitation to corruption (sponsoring practicioners to win their prescriptions). In EU any patient has a right to ask in a pharma for the cheapest generic equivalent.

Not true in Australia unless the doctor specifically ticks a box on the prescription, which they will rarely do, and mostly in the
case of special circumstances (allergies etc.)