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On January 25 2012 20:22 SerpentFlame wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 19:32 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On January 25 2012 11:24 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 25 2012 10:22 dAPhREAk wrote:On January 25 2012 10:09 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 25 2012 09:01 dAPhREAk wrote:On January 25 2012 05:40 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 24 2012 15:30 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On January 24 2012 14:50 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 24 2012 14:46 dAPhREAk wrote:
thought the thread was bumped because she had cured cancer. instead, some dude with a chip on his shoulder decides to shit on her.... not cool dude... I'm just saying that her research is not original at all. I really hate seeing articles where the author makes a discovery or event seem like it's a huge deal or really groundbreaking when it really isn't. Then I pointed out that Siemens has some problems in their selection process based on personal experience. Well, if that's the case, then wtf is going on here. Could they really be that dumb? Yes. It's also possible she has some sort of connection with the judges. For example, if you work in a lab, someone at the institution might be a judge, or know one of the judges. It's simple for them to be like "oh, I have this girl working in my lab. She's doing a project on X. You should give it a look." I had a friend who competed in ISEF (different science fair track), and her dad gave her a draft research proposal and told her to go crazy with it. In short, science fair judging can be pretty messed up. There are hundreds of research papers in hundreds of topics being published, written, editted every day. The judges can't read all of them either. To be fair though, most likely what she did was make some minor contribution to the field of knowledge-- like test out something that sounds complicated to layman, but in the field was a relatively simple experiment that hadn't been done or published about yet. My own project was of that sort (though I suppose the buzzword "cancer" is a lot cooler sounding than "cellulase" or "ethanol". That's what most "higher-level" science fair projects do. serious.... chip.... on.... your.... shoulder.... first, you call her a plagiarizer. now, you are saying she may have cheated.... I freely admitted that I had a bad experience with science fairs. If I wanted, I could have omitted that. My point is that high school level science fairs are often filled with projects that are not entirely the student's work, fairly simple when taken in context of the field they were done, or had extensive assistance and access to labs and resources. If you've looked on various science/ college forums like collegeconfidential or physcisforum, you can find other stories of science fair shenanigans. And again, I did not call her a cheater-- don't accuse me of saying that. I said that A. her project is not a breakthrough, and that there are and have been many other projects on the topic and B. that science fairs have a lot of stuff apart from pure scientific review. Published, peer-reviewed papers are the only source of information for discoveries I'm willing to trust. EDIT. Did I say anything about my friends being awesome? No I didn't. I pretty much said they cheated on their ISEF project. I didn't mean to boast about my project either-- I offered it as a comparison of another project done. But seriously, you admitted you were playing video games when you were 17. I was busy working on a lab scrounging for a topic to do a science project on. I know more about what goes on it these things. lets try quoting: On January 24 2012 14:42 ticklishmusic wrote:
I think it's pretty pathetic Siemens gave her a prize for a project that was more or less plagarized. On January 25 2012 05:40 ticklishmusic wrote:
Yes. It's also possible she has some sort of connection with the judges. i cant find where you talked about your friends, so i will take that back. Sigh. I said Siemens was pathetic. And I backed up my opinion of science fairs quite enough I think. Saying she had a connection with a judge might be a stretch and admittedly a statement made colored by (whatever bad diction) my experience, but it happens quite often. Try looking at the list of Siemens projects. There are thousands of them, and probably quite a few dozen really good ones. I'm willing to bet that a few of those got passed over in earlier rounds of judging for various reasons. This is pretty tangential to the discussion (which was pretty tangential anyways), but cancer is a huge keyword, buzzword, whatever in science fairs. Do a project on cancer, and many judges will be like "OMG CANCER CURE YAY". I once saw a project at a regional science fair about "cancer worms", in which some student got some earthworms, irradiated them and compared the size of tumors between those that were cut and those that weren't. And somehow that was a cure for cancer. I believe it made it to the state level before it lost to some project about peanut butter... Back in Dec., I was really happy for this person, but even though you basically killed nearly all of adoration I had for her achievement, I'm not feeling down. What's important to me is knowing the fact of the matter. If in fact she did was basically already done, and chances are she simply copied it, then it's there's nothing amazing here. I congratulate her on her putting in the effort into this project/presentation as it surely did take effort, and on her luck in the competition, but I guess there really isn't much else to say. She didn't discover anything or do anything novel. That said, I hate sensationalism, and it gives me a more negative outlook on things. Siemens does not take plagiarism lightly. Why would you believe a random internet poster over a prestigious science competition? Seriously, even if they have some judging mishaps at the lower levels, Siemens doesn't choose winners lightly. The contest is actually a pretty big deal. No, cancer was not cured. But some nontrivial scientific progress was made along the way. And yes, everyone stands on the shoulders of giants. Ticklishmusic, either link the fck to the place the girl plagiarized from or stop fouling up the thread with your bitter and unfounded accusations.
Fact of the matter is it was based almost entirely on something already 'discovered', as ticklish and many others in this thread have already said, but that doesn't make it plagiarism. Now let's discuss plagiarism and what was done here:
Plagiarism is taking things word for word and claiming them as your own. I can read a ton and study/research about Tesla coils and the relevant EM physics, and then do some research, and submit a project directly based on it but with a couple partially-substantiated ideas even if they're terribly wrong but make some sort of sense and I'll go far. That's not plagiarism. It's not plagiarism, but it is really really close to things actually done, and believe it or not, that's how these sorts of competitions are. Nearly every project (I don't want to say "all" in case of the random anomaly or two that don't get anywhere) is heavily based upon things already done. Do note that this isn't plagiarism. But what it is is "Based off of all of these things I didn't actually do or study or whatever, you could probably also do this perhaps even if atm it is entirely theoretical", and that's exactly what we have here. There is nothing overly special tbh. Not to take anything away from her, but this is being exponentially inflated to something it is not.
Here's something important to consider: When you write a research paper for school, your paper is almost entirely based on things already studied and discovered, but of course with some of your own thoughts even if they're entirely wrong but still make any sort of sense, but it isn't plagiarism, because at least there's something novel. That's exactly what's being done here. No, it isn't plagiarism, or else practically every student science project would be plagiarism. That completely makes your plagiarism point irrelevant, because there wasn't any. You're assuming that plagiarism means any form of copying, which is incorrect. If anything and everything was plagiarism, all of these science projects would be considered plagiarized, fyi. Every school report of yours would have been plagiarized, because nearly all of them heavily rely upon research, ideas, and topics already made.
Thus, Siemens has no need to consider people for plagiarism. No one copied someone's EXACT project and report word for word, idea for idea. With the plagiarism claim out of the way and Siemens out of this picture, it's a matter of believing ticklish or you. Yes, you can certainly bet I will believe someone who actually knows what the hell he's talking about rather than someone who attacks strawmen and doesn't know what plagiarism is and is ignorant on the matter. Kudos to ticklishmusic for having tons of experience on the matter of science competitions and standing his ground against trolls who don't know what they're talking about.
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25 years to be developed my ass... Most of the actual diseases can be cured for a longtime already, the pharma industry wouldn't allow it because of the billions dollars they are making out of it.
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Holy shit...Way to go kid.. <3
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On December 15 2011 17:37 m1rk3 wrote:
it's funny how something that's not a major killer (cancer) receives a lot of money, yet something like aids and HIV in africa does not. So many people die from the latter versus cancer. Yet, the amount of money for a cancer drug is 1000 times that of a drug to treat aids.
i'm so off topic =p
I'm sorry, could you please reread the opening clause of your post? No one can be that ignorant. You have set a new standard.
On a more related note, that's incredible. Hopefully this can go somewhere and develop into something powerful in the medical arsenal.
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On January 26 2012 05:09 lain2501 wrote:
25 years to be developed my ass... Most of the actual diseases can be cured for a longtime already, the pharma industry wouldn't allow it because of the billions dollars they are making out of it.
Way to make a uninformed post; maybe actually read up on the subject and realize how much is unknown about the human body.
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 25 2012 19:20 -_-Quails wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 17:59 Bleak wrote:On January 25 2012 10:37 synapse wrote:On January 25 2012 10:24 Uldridge wrote:On January 25 2012 10:10 Bleak wrote:On January 25 2012 09:48 Rotodyne wrote:On January 25 2012 09:44 Bleak wrote:
Cancer is like the new flu, it is really quite widespread nowadays. Natural selection will take care of it eventually though. no, actually it won't. cancer usually occurs after reproductive age, natural selection is not involved. I was thinking in terms of people who don't get cancer due to their genes being better reproduce and survive. That doesn't make sense. Cancer can come in many forms and types and is mostly completely random. "Good" genes have nothing to do with it. ANYONE can get cancer, that's the scary thing. An individual has an estimated amount of 10^23 cells in the body. Every cell becomes a growing danger for mutation with every next generation. DNA replication has it's flaws, but it's mostly corrected. The system is so good that it only makes 1 mistake (1 wrong base) per cell cycle. This is also accompanied with the decaying of the telomeres... Also, take into account the amount of harmful radiation out there and the higher chances of getting this disease are evident. There's also cancer inducing viruses like Human Papilloma Virus to account for. I believe every human body has at least some mutated cells in the body, who just don't have the genetic instability yet to develop into a cancer. This is NORMAL. Only the ones with all the right variables (like being able to make blood vessels grow towards you for growth, telomerase activation, ..) become real threats to the human body. The sad thing is, while the evolutionary process has given us much to thank for, it does come with a price. It's normal for a mammalian to develop a cancer, how horrible that may sound.. (think about how many pets die from some sort of cancer.. I have had two pets die of it..) Any person could have had the misfortune of having just the wrong gene targetted at the wrong time for a cancer to develop, no good or bad genes will fix this. However, I do believe some people are more predisposed to cancer than others. Hope this is kind of understandable and not just a ramblefest to read, I tend of being all over the place.. I do believe there are certain genes that can (maybe indirectly?) lead to higher chances of certain cancers. Even if this weren't true though, most cancers occur past the normal ages at which we reproduce, so @Bleak: yeah natural selection can't do anything about cancer. EDIT: I will assume you typo'd 10^23 and meant 10^13  That's scary to hear man. If evolution can't take care it, it seems like we're fucked eternally. What natural selection can't take care of embryo selection, and in the future embryonic genetic modification, will.
Cancer is a byproduct of evolution. Evolution happens through mistakes in DNA replication, just like cancer commonly develops from misreplications in replication regulation related genes.
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Saw this in the ROFL thread ages ago comparing it to Justin Bieber's wealth for making pop music or something.
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Will Smith is preparing his basement lab and breeding dogs as we speak.
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I don't want to downplay her achievement, but I do want to put somethings in perspective. I'll be playing a little devil's advocate here.
Firstly, using nanoparticles in cancer research is not a novel idea by far. There are many labs around the world who focus on nanoparticles for both imaging of cancer cells and drug delivery to cancer cells. Sample article here. If you google "nanoparticles and cancer," you'll get a ton of hits. Also the idea that this is a "cure" for cancer is false. There are so many factors when looking at cancer, and every type of cancer is different. Therapies like Angela's are one of many of a similar vein that are being tested and may only work for one specific type of cancer or none at all.
Secondly, I want to shine a light on undergraduate research, especially high school research, and the availability of a student to enter a lab and get his/her own project. If you know who to ask or have connections, it is pretty easy to get research experience in a lab at a major university. Most PIs are nice enough to let high school students work for them just so they get some exposure and become prospective graduate students in the future. It also means the lab gets some grunt work done free of charge. What generally happens is you'll get thrown under a Ph.D (post-doc) and he/she will guide you through the basics of the experiment. What most likely happened was Angela was working under a post-doc and edited the project in some small way which makes it seem like she was the mind behind the game.
Thridly, working 1000 hours on a project sounds like a big deal, but since things are getting so competitive you'll often see high school students sacrifice their summers to do research to gain an edge for science fair and college apps. I know this because I've been in the same seat. Because of my parents connections (both Ph.Ds working at a state university at the time), I was able to work full-time 40 hours a week for four summers at lab. That's about 4 summers x 3 months x 4 weeks x 40 hours, which is close to 2000 hours. What I'm trying to say is a high school student can easily claim "1000 hours" by working full time over the summer and part-time through school or two full summers. Also when you're in the lab full time, it's not 8 hours of grueling science per day. 95% of the time it's start a gel in a morning, transform some bacteria, etc. and leave the experiment for half the day and check up on it later. Rinse and repeat. The rest of the time you're on your computer messing around or pretending to read science articles.
Finally, science fairs are a mecca for kids who do research and "claim it as their own." Again, I know this because I've seen it first hand. Growing up with strong science background, I attended large scale science fairs for most of my schooling starting from elementary school. As you get past the regional level and hit state, you'll see these projects with complicated and impressive titles start to pop up, and when you hit nationals, almost all of them are titles you can't comprehend without reading them over 3 or 4 times. A high percent of these projects, at least the biology ones, are done by students who went into a lab and did research grunt work for a post-doc and received original recognition. One of my buddies did some summer research as a high school student for a PI, as part of a junior research paid program, not even as a stand-alone student, and went to the International Science Fair and just thanked his PI under acknowledgments. He was getting paid to do mandatory research that he may have/may not have been remotely interested in and made it to the top giving off the impression that he did a lot of work. Although I never used my research for science fair, my PI was kind enough to co-author me in a publication for a prominent science magazine for the work I did. A publication is a big deal for a undergrad, and I can't say I did ton of the analytical work (mostly grunt stuff), though I would be claim that I've been published.
Overall, I have no doubt that there were plenty of equally awe-inspiring projects at the competition, and she was the most prepared and impressive to take top place. In addition, I strongly doubt that this was a completely original idea from her side. It is most likely a twist on what her lab was working on already. Clearly in any interview she isn't going to say otherwise.
That being said she is to be highly commended on her motivation and devotion to science. We have no way of knowing if she truly enjoys doing research or what her true motivation is. Whatever it is, it's nice to know there are good things that came out of it. I would love nothing else to be proven wrong on all of the points: that she is genuinely interested in her research, and it was her original idea that was given 1000 hours of work. However, as a student who has done a ton of high school research, I know how the story generally goes.
I tried to search online for her paper submission or journal article but I came up with nothing. If anyone has a link to her work or her lab's/PI's work, could you please post it.
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On January 25 2012 20:22 SerpentFlame wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 19:32 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On January 25 2012 11:24 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 25 2012 10:22 dAPhREAk wrote:On January 25 2012 10:09 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 25 2012 09:01 dAPhREAk wrote:On January 25 2012 05:40 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 24 2012 15:30 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On January 24 2012 14:50 ticklishmusic wrote:On January 24 2012 14:46 dAPhREAk wrote:
thought the thread was bumped because she had cured cancer. instead, some dude with a chip on his shoulder decides to shit on her.... not cool dude... I'm just saying that her research is not original at all. I really hate seeing articles where the author makes a discovery or event seem like it's a huge deal or really groundbreaking when it really isn't. Then I pointed out that Siemens has some problems in their selection process based on personal experience. Well, if that's the case, then wtf is going on here. Could they really be that dumb? Yes. It's also possible she has some sort of connection with the judges. For example, if you work in a lab, someone at the institution might be a judge, or know one of the judges. It's simple for them to be like "oh, I have this girl working in my lab. She's doing a project on X. You should give it a look." I had a friend who competed in ISEF (different science fair track), and her dad gave her a draft research proposal and told her to go crazy with it. In short, science fair judging can be pretty messed up. There are hundreds of research papers in hundreds of topics being published, written, editted every day. The judges can't read all of them either. To be fair though, most likely what she did was make some minor contribution to the field of knowledge-- like test out something that sounds complicated to layman, but in the field was a relatively simple experiment that hadn't been done or published about yet. My own project was of that sort (though I suppose the buzzword "cancer" is a lot cooler sounding than "cellulase" or "ethanol". That's what most "higher-level" science fair projects do. serious.... chip.... on.... your.... shoulder.... first, you call her a plagiarizer. now, you are saying she may have cheated.... I freely admitted that I had a bad experience with science fairs. If I wanted, I could have omitted that. My point is that high school level science fairs are often filled with projects that are not entirely the student's work, fairly simple when taken in context of the field they were done, or had extensive assistance and access to labs and resources. If you've looked on various science/ college forums like collegeconfidential or physcisforum, you can find other stories of science fair shenanigans. And again, I did not call her a cheater-- don't accuse me of saying that. I said that A. her project is not a breakthrough, and that there are and have been many other projects on the topic and B. that science fairs have a lot of stuff apart from pure scientific review. Published, peer-reviewed papers are the only source of information for discoveries I'm willing to trust. EDIT. Did I say anything about my friends being awesome? No I didn't. I pretty much said they cheated on their ISEF project. I didn't mean to boast about my project either-- I offered it as a comparison of another project done. But seriously, you admitted you were playing video games when you were 17. I was busy working on a lab scrounging for a topic to do a science project on. I know more about what goes on it these things. lets try quoting: On January 24 2012 14:42 ticklishmusic wrote:
I think it's pretty pathetic Siemens gave her a prize for a project that was more or less plagarized. On January 25 2012 05:40 ticklishmusic wrote:
Yes. It's also possible she has some sort of connection with the judges. i cant find where you talked about your friends, so i will take that back. Sigh. I said Siemens was pathetic. And I backed up my opinion of science fairs quite enough I think. Saying she had a connection with a judge might be a stretch and admittedly a statement made colored by (whatever bad diction) my experience, but it happens quite often. Try looking at the list of Siemens projects. There are thousands of them, and probably quite a few dozen really good ones. I'm willing to bet that a few of those got passed over in earlier rounds of judging for various reasons. This is pretty tangential to the discussion (which was pretty tangential anyways), but cancer is a huge keyword, buzzword, whatever in science fairs. Do a project on cancer, and many judges will be like "OMG CANCER CURE YAY". I once saw a project at a regional science fair about "cancer worms", in which some student got some earthworms, irradiated them and compared the size of tumors between those that were cut and those that weren't. And somehow that was a cure for cancer. I believe it made it to the state level before it lost to some project about peanut butter... Back in Dec., I was really happy for this person, but even though you basically killed nearly all of adoration I had for her achievement, I'm not feeling down. What's important to me is knowing the fact of the matter. If in fact she did was basically already done, and chances are she simply copied it, then it's there's nothing amazing here. I congratulate her on her putting in the effort into this project/presentation as it surely did take effort, and on her luck in the competition, but I guess there really isn't much else to say. She didn't discover anything or do anything novel. That said, I hate sensationalism, and it gives me a more negative outlook on things. Siemens does not take plagiarism lightly. Why would you believe a random internet poster over a prestigious science competition? Seriously, even if they have some judging mishaps at the lower levels, Siemens doesn't choose winners lightly. The contest is actually a pretty big deal. No, cancer was not cured. But some nontrivial scientific progress was made along the way. And yes, everyone stands on the shoulders of giants. Ticklishmusic, either link the fck to the place the girl plagiarized from or stop fouling up the thread with your bitter and unfounded accusations.
More or less plagarized I said. I apologize for using the term fairly loosely in a non-academic sense. I can't analyze exactly how original it is, and how much was done before. There are hundreds of papers about gold nanoparticles and cancer, and it would be impossible for me to become an expert in the field in any reasonable amount of time. But my point is, she did NOT make a huge discovery. She made a small advancement in a fairly big field. Scientists every day make some tiny contribution like hers, but they don't get published about in the WSJ or any other newspaper.
The rest of my post was a discussion about problems with science fairs, which does NOT directly relate to her project's merit. I ended up opening a whole other can of worms because of daPhreak, which I now regret doing. Suffice to say, where there's money there's almost inevitably some corruption or other shenanigans going on. I did science fairs all four years of high school, and you wouldn't believe some of the things that go on behind doors at the convention centers or in hotel rooms. It can get just as bad as politics, and maybe worse. The competition is intense, and there are those who (and their parents) who will do anything to win. But that's another problem altogether, and one I should not have brought up.
I think I come off as bitter because I actually bothered to mention my experience with science fairs. Like I said, I didn't have to, and I could have stopped with "what she did was a small advancement in a pretty big field, congrats but I'm not really impressed, and this is sensationalized as shit." And that was the gist of my post in this thread until I felt compelled to respond to a guy who apparently doesn't even bother to read threads or know how the news updates on the left side of TL.net work.
Darkmetal's post (above) is a much better one that those I've scattered around in this thread. He makes the point about her work that I originally tried to make before this devolved into a flame war.
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unfortunately i doubt she has discovered the cure for science. In fact, I quite agree with ticklish that most likely the work that she has done was probably not entirely or in fact mostly her idea.
However, I know a lot of people that do these competitions (and get far), I believe that these are great way for kids to learn about science and go from there. It's a really great way especially for kids to delve into science and get into the community.
Definitely there is some hype from the media about this being a cure to cancer, but hey, who care as long as more kids get into science and not professional video gaming or something...
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we don't need another thing that prolongs peoples like we're over populated as is thanks to modern medicine. it's a nice thought though
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On January 26 2012 12:48 MugenXBanksy wrote:
we don't need another thing that prolongs peoples like we're over populated as is thanks to modern medicine. it's a nice thought though
ya, plz refuse medicine the next time you have fever. And if you have appendicits plz don't you dare getting it removed.
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On January 26 2012 12:48 MugenXBanksy wrote:
we don't need another thing that prolongs peoples like we're over populated as is thanks to modern medicine. it's a nice thought though
Tell us that when you or a loved one is suffering from cancer. There's way too much hype and anti-hype backlash in this thread. It was nice work for one person at that life stage, more good things may or may not follow.
And as for those posters who claim that Pharma is sitting on "cures for cancer" that they're not releasing, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
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Doesn't make me feel like an underachiever at all, but this is pretty dang awesome. :D
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So I did some digging around and found "Zhang hopes to become a research professor. Her mentor was Dr. Zhen Cheng of Stanford University. Zhang first approached Stanford at the age of 14 but was initially denied any mentorship for being too young" from here.
So I went to her professor's website: http://chenglab.stanford.edu/
Look at the research the lab does. It specializes in imaging and therapy of cancer through various molecular techniques. This makes me 95% sure she was just stuck with a post-doc and did some grunt work on a project that was handed to her. She probably took some promising results and packaged it into her own project. It's not an uncommon thing to see high school students take advantage of these kind of opportunities.
If her discovery was really something new and field changing, her PI probably would've tried to get the work published. As of now, I didn't see her name under any of the recent publications. The Siemen's website (http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition/2011_winners.htm) doesn't have her paper linked either.
Like I said, I can surely appreciate the time and effort she put into working in a lab. It's not most fun job and results are often slow and unpromising. Here's to her becoming baller in the future though 
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On January 26 2012 05:30 Schwopzi wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On January 25 2012 19:20 -_-Quails wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 17:59 Bleak wrote:On January 25 2012 10:37 synapse wrote:On January 25 2012 10:24 Uldridge wrote:On January 25 2012 10:10 Bleak wrote:On January 25 2012 09:48 Rotodyne wrote:On January 25 2012 09:44 Bleak wrote:
Cancer is like the new flu, it is really quite widespread nowadays. Natural selection will take care of it eventually though. no, actually it won't. cancer usually occurs after reproductive age, natural selection is not involved. I was thinking in terms of people who don't get cancer due to their genes being better reproduce and survive. That doesn't make sense. Cancer can come in many forms and types and is mostly completely random. "Good" genes have nothing to do with it. ANYONE can get cancer, that's the scary thing. An individual has an estimated amount of 10^23 cells in the body. Every cell becomes a growing danger for mutation with every next generation. DNA replication has it's flaws, but it's mostly corrected. The system is so good that it only makes 1 mistake (1 wrong base) per cell cycle. This is also accompanied with the decaying of the telomeres... Also, take into account the amount of harmful radiation out there and the higher chances of getting this disease are evident. There's also cancer inducing viruses like Human Papilloma Virus to account for. I believe every human body has at least some mutated cells in the body, who just don't have the genetic instability yet to develop into a cancer. This is NORMAL. Only the ones with all the right variables (like being able to make blood vessels grow towards you for growth, telomerase activation, ..) become real threats to the human body. The sad thing is, while the evolutionary process has given us much to thank for, it does come with a price. It's normal for a mammalian to develop a cancer, how horrible that may sound.. (think about how many pets die from some sort of cancer.. I have had two pets die of it..) Any person could have had the misfortune of having just the wrong gene targetted at the wrong time for a cancer to develop, no good or bad genes will fix this. However, I do believe some people are more predisposed to cancer than others. Hope this is kind of understandable and not just a ramblefest to read, I tend of being all over the place.. I do believe there are certain genes that can (maybe indirectly?) lead to higher chances of certain cancers. Even if this weren't true though, most cancers occur past the normal ages at which we reproduce, so @Bleak: yeah natural selection can't do anything about cancer. EDIT: I will assume you typo'd 10^23 and meant 10^13 That's scary to hear man. If evolution can't take care it, it seems like we're fucked eternally. What natural selection can't take care of embryo selection, and in the future embryonic genetic modification, will. Cancer is a byproduct of evolution. Evolution happens through mistakes in DNA replication, just like cancer commonly develops from misreplications in replication regulation related genes.
Several cancers are more common in people carrying certain genes. Where these genes do not confer some other significant advantage, and where the genes lead to disease only after the typical reproductive period, then embryo selection or the genetic modification of embryos would be a viable way for future parents to avoid passing on things like BRCA mutations. These are the ones I was talking about. Other conditions that kick in after the primary reproductive period and would need such intervention to prevent propogation include Huntingdon's disease.
Cancer that occurs very late in life as a result of accumulated errors is harder to deal with - we would ideally develop a mechanism for repairing affected cells, or more likely develop better techniques for identifying cells that go rogue more quickly and killing them. The trouble is that the older we get, the more errors there are and the more likely that there is an error that can lead to cancer - so unless cells can be repaired too their young state we will not do anything more than postpone the time at which a rogue cell evades notice for long enough to cause cancer. This cancer is also beyond the scope of natural selection as it strikes in extreme old age, and is also beyond the scope of embryonic techniques. It is not necessarily an eternal scourge though.
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United States10328 Posts
On January 26 2012 13:21 darkmetal505 wrote:So I did some digging around and found "Zhang hopes to become a research professor. Her mentor was Dr. Zhen Cheng of Stanford University. Zhang first approached Stanford at the age of 14 but was initially denied any mentorship for being too young" from here. So I went to her professor's website: http://chenglab.stanford.edu/Look at the research the lab does. It specializes in imaging and therapy of cancer through various molecular techniques. This makes me 95% sure she was just stuck with a post-doc and did some grunt work on a project that was handed to her. She probably took some promising results and packaged it into her own project. It's not an uncommon thing to see high school students take advantage of these kind of opportunities. If her discovery was really something new and field changing, her PI probably would've tried to get the work published. As of now, I didn't see her name under any of the recent publications. The Siemen's website (http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition/2011_winners.htm) doesn't have her paper linked either. Like I said, I can surely appreciate the time and effort she put into working in a lab. It's not most fun job and results are often slow and unpromising. Here's to her becoming baller in the future though
This is basically true about any lab-based high school research (and often undergraduate research as well.) When you're young, you don't have the experience with lab techniques or the background to come up with your own project idea and then execute it, but those who do "good high school research" usually have the time, the determination, and the raw intelligence to get the execution down decently.
They definitely deserve massive respect, but it's rare that a high-school researcher's results actually have a huge impact on society. When you do research contests, you learn to sweeten up potential applications of your work (I'd know because I did a math project...) in a sort of sensationalist way. There's nothing really wrong with that (companies are giving away big bucks to high school students for their research!), but again, I'm pretty sure that she didn't "cure cancer." She made a small advance in a big field (as someone else put it); that's how almost all science research is. Her work, on its own, has decent quality, but it's only amazing because she's so young. (Same with most of these Siemens/Intel kids. Though sometimes, it's not even terribly amazing... I was a regional finalist for Siemens with a not-particularly-mindblowing math project, and so was another kid from my school who actually didn't really know what he was doing.)
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Glad to see ticklishmusic and darkmetal having common sense, experience, knowledge, and most especially putting completely overblown stories to rest and showing us this isn't anywhere near a huge deal as the OP and other posts make it out to be. One of the things I despise most are things overrated, exaggerated, and sensationalized to oblivion, which is exactly what we saw in this thread before ticklish and darkmetal got involved. They stood up for what's true in the face of trolls, angry people, and naysayers. Huge, huge rep to them  Cheers, and big respect to you two.
In any case, as I've said before, I'm happy for Angela for winning this contest, and that's that. 
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EPT
