Elizabeth Blackburn: Ordering Cancer Cells to Curl Up and Die

Irresponsibly Inaccurate

"We're nowhere near a magic drug yet, she cautions—the approach is still too preliminary to be in human trials"

How can she say this and how can Ms. Lyon report it without any mention of, much less some kind of attempt at a rational distinction from the ongoing Phase I/II trials of Geron Corp.'s GRN163L telomerase inhibitor across a broad spectrum of cancers as well as completed Phase I and ongoing Phase II human trials of a telomerase based cancer vaccines GRNVAC1 and GRNVAC2 conducted by Geron at Duke University. We are talking about work that started over 10 years ago and human trials that started as early as 5 years ago.

And we are not talking about something different or related to the mechanism Elizabeth BlackBurn refers to - we are talking about exactly the same thing. She is either attempting to establish some form of revisionist history, or claim more credit than is due her, or is so out of touch in her own field that she's saying things that might have been true 10-15 years ago.

How can it be that U.S. News and World Report doesn't verify facts and statements in the articles they print? Sloppy? Lazy? Hidden Agenda?

Come on US News and World Report, try a little Googling - and I mean very little is all it would take to put a little depth into the article and show that your organization is capable of researching a subject at least as well as any semi-literate 10 year old.

Lindsay Lyon responds:

We thank you for your interest in the subject. We consulted Dr. Blackburn on the matter and here's what she had to say:

"The writer . . . has the scientific facts wrong in his/her assertion: 'And we are not talking about something different or related to the mechanism Elizabeth Blackburn refers to--we are talking about exactly the same thing.' That assertion is incorrect. As my colleagues and I have published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, rather than inhibition of telomerase enzymatic activitiy or the use of a vaccine, the approach that was correctly referred to in the above article is to 'engineer mutant gene variations into the enzyme to poison the cells' telomeres.' As we have amply demonstrated in the published scientific literature, this approach causes effects on cancer cells that are completely distinct from either the simple inhibition the correspondent refers to or a vaccine approach. All these scientific facts are available online in the published literature. I hope this sets the factual record straight."

Telomere

Now I'm in a "double-bind." If stress can shorten telomere length might not "self-scolding" do so too?

Telomere Length

Can self-scolding shorten telomeres?