Idealized Cancer Control

As I write this, possibly my most HalfBaked Idea ever, the tagline under the photograph/picture of the croissant-on-a-dish states, "Outside the bag the box came in." Very appropriate, and thus encouraged, I continue....

An important aspect of this Idea is "telomerase", which was the subject of another Idea (linked). While it is known that all cancers are associated with telomerase, which in turn is associated with cellular immortality, the evidence so far indicates that that enzyme is not, itself, a cancer-causing substance.

So, let us start by thinking about a single cancerous cell. It has abandoned its normal function as part of the body, and is focusing all its efforts into reproducing itself. Let us pretend the cell is basically announcing to the body, "I don't wanna die! I reject the cellular coordination that forces me toward limited lifespan!"

Well, there are two ways to Answer that attitude. One, the one typically pursued by modern medical science is, "Kill it before it spreads!" The other way to answer that attitude, however, is what this Idea is all about. See the subtitle?

Remember that in order to become immortal, the cancer cell produces telomerase, which in turn repairs the "telomeres" at the ends of each strand of DNA in the chromosomes of the cell nucleus. At some point after that happens, the cell initiates the cell-division process. We need to learn more about the actual trigger or triggers of that process, and I'm confident that we eventually will.

Now we have two cancer cells, both of which start producing telomerase, to repeat the cycle. Here is where we want to invoke Idealized Cancer Control. We want to kill ONE of the two cells, and "explode" it, so that the telomerase it produced gets released into the body, generally. The other cell, we allow to repeat its cycle, producing a second cancer cell.

After that second cancer cell is produced, we again kill ONE of the two cells, exploding it so its telomerase gets released into the body. A major reason this Idea is HalfBaked is, I'm not sure how to only kill one of two cancer cells. Perhaps nanotechnology will one day be capable of it, but for now, all we can do is assume it can eventually be accomplished.

Anyway, remember that the linked Idea states that once in the body, telomerase can infuse into any other cell, and cause it to repair its telomeres. That cell is still healthy, still functioning normally, but if it needs to divide, it can now do so, instead of growing old and dying.

With ENOUGH cancerous cells in the body, being destroyed half the time by Idealized Cancer Control, the overall body then receives enough telomerase, so that the whole body can live normally AND immortally. The dissension represented by the cancerous cells has indeed been directed toward a constructive outcome!