This Simple Test Could Detect Half of All Cancers

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Cancer is a complicated disease, and there's no simple blood test for early detection and screening to spot cancer in general. That might be changing thanks to LINE-1, a retrotransposon gene that doesn't do anything.
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Sources:
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www.activemotif.com/blog-line-1
www.quantamagazine.org/the-co...
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www.nature.com/articles/ng.3945
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www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.cancer.org/cancer/underst...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...
medlineplus.gov/genetics/gene...
www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Image Sources:
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
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www.activemotif.com/blog-line-1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Re...
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commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
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www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
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www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
www.gettyimages.com/detail/vi...
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[@alexwirtz9780]

So happy to see Hank doing better and still educating us about cancer even after his own bout with it. You're an inspiration Hank!

[@richardlandrum1966]

Sorry to be grammar police. The word you intended is (bout). 👍🏼

[@monicareid8858]

I had no idea. Geeze!!! I’m so sorry!!! Hank, you helped me tutor biology (the sodium potassium pump!) to college students years ago! Thank you so very much!! Thank you for fighting the good fight! Kick cancer’s butt!!! Best!

[@alexwirtz9780]

@richardlandrum1966 good call, thanks. Fixed it. Spelling is not my strength 😅

[@thehurricane6767]

Is he in remission? He is looking good

[@happyninjafighter2]

​@@thehurricane6767 Yes, he is in remission, praise the sun.

[@dillydabble]

Someone needs to immediately put this on the radar of blood donation agencies. They already test the blood they collect for STDs, etc. Imagine the uptick in regular blood donors if you're essentially also being screened for cancer every 2-3 months when you donate. 🤯

[@katarh]

Oh damn, that's a really neat idea. Would be a massive incentive to actually go in more frequently. BTW they have changed some of the diagnostic screening questions at the Red Cross - things like tattoos and such as now 3 months instead of 1 year.

[@amylivingston4590]

@@katarhAnd men who have sex with men (and women who have sex with those men) are now cleared to donate if they haven't had any new partners in the past 3 months.

[@kahnadah]

Researchers: "We've got a test that can help detect cancer! And it only costs $3 to use!" American health care industry: "We're gonna have to charge $1000 each. Gotta pay for the research, after all!"

[@ameteuraspirant]

research paid for entirely by government grants, too, in most cases.

[@Valiyus]

@@ameteuraspirant Sad if true. Imagine making money off our money. It's like we invest into it to only have it sold back to us.

[@c.i.t.yenglish]

Then the same American health care industry will mandate the test when applying for insurance in order to outright reject you for having a preexisting condition that you didn't even know about.

[@SpeakShibboleth]

​@@c.i.t.yenglishthat's not a thing anymore. Thanks, Obama!

[@randalalansmith9883]

I'm betting the bill is 1500, and the copay is 225.

[@marlabrunker738]

There's a type of cancer called a metastasis of unknown origin, which is exactly what it says on the label: they found a metastasis, but damned if they know what kinda primary tumor it hived off of. They are therefore hard to treat. The means of detecting cancer proposed by this video seems like it would present the same problem: once you've figured out a patient might have cancer, you still need to hunt it down. However, if this sort of testing becomes commonplace, it might spur faster greater improvement in techniques for finding and identifying early-stage primary tumors - which in themselves could ignite a lot of nifty spin-off technologies.

[@turtlesauce6860]

One of the problems with these great new cancer-detecting tests is whether or not your doctor will recognize and take them seriously. My story - I was seeing a naturopath who noticed signs of cancer, like an extremely low cholesterol level, end-stage adrenal fatigue, and elevated general tumor markers. He had me take a test called IvyGene, a genetic test that detects the by-products of cancer activity. It had been validated for at least 4 different types of cancer. I had to pay $500 out of pocket for the test. It showed I was over the normal threshold for cancer activity, but not where. So I then paid out of pocket for a PET scan, which showed a little lesion lighting up in my right lung. They assumed that bc I was not a smoker and only in my mid-40's, it must be benign, and of course the naturopath brainwashed me with the whole "don't get a biopsy - it will make it spread and kill you". I was supposed to repeat a PET in a few months, but no doctor would believe me. I handed them all these lab results, but they only glanced at them and handed them right back. I was even told by one doctor that "people get those things in their lungs all the time - it's better you don't even know that it's there"!!! After a year of trying to find what was causing some extremely painful arthritis-like symptoms, and after being dismissed by two different oncologists, I was finally able to get a CT scan which showed that the "benign", tiny, perfectly resectable lesion had grown to 7.4 cm with innumerable spots. At age 47, after spending over a year and thousands of dollars, I was diagnosed with EGFR mutant lung cancer, stage 4. This type of lung cancer is associated with young, healthy never-smokers. There are many exciting new developments in targeted treatments, but stage 4 is still incurable. I am basically dying because nobody believed me, and none of my doctors took this IvyGene test seriously because they'd never heard of it. Allopaths are overbooked these days and don't even have time to learn your damn name, let alone stay abreast of these new discoveries. Unless some pharmaceutical sales rep takes their whole staff out to a nice lunch and pushes it on them.

[@RasielSuarez]

I am so truly sorry to read this. Reading this hit me like a gut punch. I really really hope that there's an actual treatment for you. Seriously, I can't even express how devastated I am on your behalf :'- (

[@disqusrubbish5467]

Wow. I'm so sorry - hang in there. If I may, last year we took our obviously sick dog to our vet and he had a little hand-held ultrasound that wirelessly connected to his iPad. He's not even a radiologist and we could all see something "bad" on the screen. My thought was - a vet has one, why don't all doctors have these? They should be as ubiquitous as stethoscopes. Pain in the chest? "Let's take a look," I wish you the best. Your experience is horrible.

[@flyhigh9944]

So sorry to hear this, I hope you're doing alright Could you provide more information on the arthritis like pain?

[@Psilomuscimol]

Natural doctors are usually frauds. You can't treat cancer effectively with herbs as far as I know.

[@MKisFeelinSpicy]

@@disqusrubbish5467 It doesn't sound like seeing the tumor was the problem here. They saw it but assumed it was benign. I get wanting to limit overdiagnosing and overtreating, which if I'm being generous, maybe these doctors were thinking of. Some tumors really are benign and treatments can cause a lot of really bad symptoms while on treatment and long-lasting thereafter, so you don't want to put someone through that if it's not necessary. But ultimately this person is right - these doctors weren't educated about current testing options and in this case actively ignored what was presented to them, presumably without even bothering to look into what the test was. It shouldn't even be possible for an oncologist to not be familiar with the latest cancer-detecting tools. :/

[@TE_EvoDevo_GeneReg]

Ok, I'd like to clarify some things about LINE1 here, since this happens to be somewhat close to my area of expertise. 1. LINE1 is more generally a transposable element (retrotransposon as stated in the video). Transposable elements survive in genomes by creating more of themselves (i.e. genomic parasite). They don't provide "function" for the host organism in the classic sense like genes coding for proteins. However, transposable elements can be used to do things after millions of years of evolution. Some example biological processes include providing a new gene for the placenta and sequences for turning on the innate immune response. So it's not entirely accurate to say that all transposable elements like LINE1 are "junk." It's just that most unlikely to be currently useful. 2. LINE1 inserting into genes can effectively break the gene, as mentioned in the video. However, this is very rare, even in cancer. The examples that were listed are not common. It's been a while since I looked, but it was debated whether LINE1 expression even helped cancer, at least a few years ago. 3. LINE1 becomes activated in many cancers. The exact mechanism is not known (as far as I know). The hypothesis is that during formation of cancer cells from normal cells, the normal control mechanisms for regulating cellular gene expression, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, break down. You can think of it as cancer cells that lose normal regulation have a better chance of activating something helpful for their growth/survival. The side effect of this loss of normal regulatory machinery is that transposable elements, including LINE1, are reactivated in many cases. This does not necessarily mean that the LINE1 is important for the cancer. If you killed cancer cells that produce LINE1 proteins, you would simply bias the surviving cancer to those that do not have LINE1, which would entirely screw up a test that relies on LINE1 detection.

[@clogs4956]

Might I, a layman, ask: could LINE 1 be implicated as starting cancer growth?

[@TE_EvoDevo_GeneReg]

@@clogs4956 Great question. LINE1 could definitely help to start cancer growth. The classic example is the case where LINE1 inserted into APC, a tumor suppressor gene that normally helps to prevent cancer cells from arising. The LINE1 insertion disrupted the gene, essentially killing it. Of course, the one event doesn't cause cancer on its own, but it does make that cell with the LINE1 caused APC disruption to be more likely to become cancerous. There's also another aspect of LINE1 activity in cancer that I forgot about until I just looked it up. It's a little complicated. The basic idea is that if LINE1 is active in cancer, it can increase the frequency of mutations that can have large effects. They can cause small or large deletions in the genome (which can include tumor suppressors). They cause weird translocations, which is when one chromosome gets fused to another chromosome and can promote cancer growth in some situations (BCR-ABL is the classic example). I'm sure there's more, but I don't know enough and there's probably other things that we haven't seen yet.

[@dianahuang4991]

@@TE_EvoDevo_GeneRegthat’s so cool! Thank you for adding valuable insight to the discussion!!

[@wizardtim8573]

So if LINE1 does indeed do nothing but create potential complications, would removing it from the genome be a valid idea using genetic engineering?

[@TE_EvoDevo_GeneReg]

@@wizardtim8573 It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove LINE1 from our genome, or any genome containing LINE1 that I'm aware of. The reason is that sequences that look like LINE1 make up about 17% of our 3.2 billion base pairs and these sequences are spread throughout. We would have to precisely cut out hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pieces. That's already impractical, but there's then the matter of unintended consequences. We haven't totally understood what all the LINE1 sequences in our genome do, as in we have not definitively figured out if each is useful, harmful, or just filler. In my own research, we have evidence that some LINE1 might be useful for gene regulation, and there's the possibility that some are useful for other functions. One thing that people have thought about (including me) is how transposable elements like LINE1 affect species and individuals. For individuals like you or me, LINE1 is harmful or neutral (as in it doesn't do anything). For the long term survival of a species (or group of related species), it might actually be helpful. In a sense, LINE1 produces genetic variation which can lead to visible variation in traits, things that can help a species adapt.

[@Amanda-C.]

"...as little as half a drop of blood." Hums nervously, thinking of Theranos. I am holding my breath for replication. Seriously exciting results, but feels too good to be true.

[@Steph-rj1uc]

"Cost less than $3 to produce" Big pharma: "Hold my beer"

[@AnonymousAnonymous-xj1ht]

unfortunately

[@vipergts109]

Hold my yacht 🛥️

[@danuttall]

The term "junk DNA" has largely been replaced with "inactive DNA sequence" which means that this section of DNA does not generate a protein or have another useful function (that we know of). It might be active at some time, but we just haven't been looking at the right time. The behaviour of retrotransposons make me think of viral behaviour, except when the virus genes activate, they make a protein/lipid shell AND a copy of the DNA/RNA sequence, not just a DNA sequence that reinserts itself in the genome somewhere.

[@misdrevenous]

My mother died from Stage IV lung cancer just 3 weeks ago. We have been trying to keep it at bay for 5 years now. It was the most agonizing and tiring experience for our family. I hope diagnostics like these get to mainstream healthcare soon. I hope someday, we'll just say "it's just cancer"

[@CaptainMarvelsSon]

"Protein McProteinface" 😂🤣 Awesome callback! That made my day.

[@splatzec]

Having $3 tests for cancer would make preventative treatment so viable. I am definitely hoping to hear more advancements coming to light this year.

[@aliensoup2420]

Thats how much the test costs the lab to perform...the lab will charge $300.

[@MichaelGGarry]

@@aliensoup2420 Not all of us live in the USA.....

[@evanulven8249]

Which is why the insurance industry in the US will make sure it's either priced out of the reach of 99% of the population, markup it price %1000, or use it as a way to refuse people treatment.

[@aliensoup2420]

Keep in mind, $3 is only the cost of the test technology alone. You still have to pay for the lab technician, who doesn't work for free, to administer the test, and for the lab facilities to operate that day.

[@evanulven8249]

@@aliensoup2420 Also, don't forget the administrator's Mercedes fund.

[@OwlBinary]

It's tragic that Hank had to experience cancer and all the trauma that comes with it, but as a person with a BRCA1 mutation, seeing more general public attention come to cancer gives me so much hope. Cancer is scary, but we are clever creatures. We have the means to beat cancer at its own game and I'm so excited to be able to live through such a huge jump in progress. Thank you to every doctor, researcher, donor, outspoken patient and science communicator!!!

[@saschaesken5524]

😂

[@eden.nd.]

I lost my mum to pancreatic cancer, and it took so long for them to figure out what it was that after diagnosis she only lived another 6 weeks. The ability to screen earlier, when she first started being unwell, probably wouldn't have saved her life but it definitely would've given her a lot more time. I hope research into this continues and it's available in the future!

[@NotSoNormal1987]

Imagine catching it before she even showed symptoms then. Because this could do that.

[@PikalaxALT]

One theory of why cancers tend to demethylate their genomes is because they're replicating so fast that the machinery that copies the methylation state from the parent copy to the daughter copy doesn't have time to do its work or is explicitly silenced by a mutation.

[@hazelgrunts]

The thing about having smoking relatives die of cancer (five in my case) is that you don’t know if cancer runs in the family or if it’s mainly down to the smoking. It’s a little scary.

[@justanothercommercial]

When you can, get your genome sequenced! “Runs in the family” should be antiquated. Also, everyone should have their genome sequenced!

[@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu]

@@justanothercommercial You shouldn't give people this kind of advice. It's dangerous. I don't want to know what's in my genetics if I can help it. For that, I turn to Jesus.

[@chloetherainbowqueen3025]

They're companies that have turned over people's DNA to governments in the past, sure I'm unlikely to be targeted by any current governments but I can't exactly change my DNA​ or they could just sell it as data to another company who knows@@justanothercommercial

[@misspatvandriverlady7555]

My grandfathers and one grandma all smoked like chimneys. Who knows if their deaths at 38, 54, and 75 from lung cancer, heart attack, and hemorrhagic stroke, respectively, had anything to do with genetics or not? Interesting coinkidink that the one grandparent that didn’t smoke lived to 85, though! 🤔

[@MrEnte3000]

Why not both?

[@korbindallas4552]

"Attention all Associates. Cancer on Line-1. Repeat, Cancer on Line-1."

[@cmaven4762]

I was thinking this week about the lack of advance notice in pancreatic cancer and how that results in an extremely high mortality rate. Hopefully a test like this can help lead to earlier detection and more successful treatment.

[@melissag9081]

Just had my annual mammogram today (I’m in my early 40s). My mom always got mammograms and lived a very healthy lifestyle. Despite that she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer when she was only 56 years old and passed away about 6 months later. It felt even shorter than that bc chemo seemed to be working for awhile, but she probably had mutations that allowed the cancer to become unresponsive to treatment. My family was told it was probably breast cancer at the time but now talking to doctors it seems more likely it began as ovarian cancer. It would be incredible if a blood test could catch nasty cancers that tend to hide until they are very difficult if not impossible to treat.

[@huldu]

Cancer doesn't discriminate. We could live a healthy life or not, we could be successful or not, cancer does not care. For example my family line has no cancer but we have other nasty problems instead. It's kind of fascinating to think about how some things just happen for some and not for others. I know you can "get" cancer from all kinds of things but in general I think it's something you're born with and one day it'll trigger, for some people earlier than others. Scary.

[@ypcomchic]

I’m sorry for your loss and that is smart to get testing early. Hope you don’t get cancer.

[@CricketsBay]

Anyone with breast cancer, Endometriosis (symptoms, but not confirmed), or PCOS symptoms should get their doctor to test for CA-125. It could be Ovarian Cancer misdiagnosed as one of the above.

[@davestagner]

A friend of mine had her first mammogram when she turned 40, and they found cancer. Luckily, a mastectomy took care of it. She had no family history or risk factors. If she’d waited a couple of years, she would probably have died.

[@melissahollowell7255]

I recently participated in a clinical trial looking for cancer markers on blood. I made some nice pocket change and hopefully contributed to the advancement of cancer detection.

[@broccanmacronain457]

It is very coincidental that this comes out so I can watch it only a couple of hours after my doctor calls and tells me that the latest test is pretty much verifying that I have Lymphoma. Great video as always and very informative, thanks.

[@WindsorMason]

Hoping that treatment for it will be as easy and swift as possible! 🤞

[@PurpleNoir]

Wishing you well pal ❤

[@broccanmacronain457]

@@PurpleNoir Thanks

[@broccanmacronain457]

@@WindsorMason That is the idea I got from talking to the Doctor.

[@Sprinklgrl]

I hope for an easy recovery for you. Lymphoma is one of the most easily treatable cancers

[@Capybarazoro]

I remember 10 years ago sitting in Biology, they were just discussing how exons(expressed genes) and introns(interrupting gene sequence) used to be perceived as useless redundancies but were now being understood as activators in response to disease and environment. Shows that Star Trek Voyager was right back in the 90's on this notion.

[@AxeLea3]

If this becomes a thing it would be extremely huge. Ovarian Cancers have a 5 year survival rate of ~43% (ranging from 80% to 10% depending on their grading when they first get discovered). They are so hard to find that usually the first symptom is a volume gain in the abdomen from the added water that the cancer spreading around the abdomen. This thing is grade AAA nasty stuff and diagnosing it in bloodplasma through regular screening would be a complete and utter gamechanger. ❤

[@CricketsBay]

Every person with symptoms which correlate for Ovarian Cancer should get tested for CA-125. 99% of those who test below, 35 for CA-125 don't have Ovarian Cancer. But for those who have high, 99% do have or will soon (within 2 months) develop Ovarian Cancer, and the gap of 2 months is because a doctor misdiagnosed it as "not Ovarian Cancer eventhough it has all the symptoms."

[@DFSJR1203]

This $3 test to detect cancer sounds great. It reminds me of a handheld device I worked on that could detect the severity of heart muscle damage from a heart attack. The test was the Troponin Test that was run in a device call the i-STAT device (Abbott). It used only a small (2 or 3 drops) of blood to tell how bad your heart was damaged.

[@ginnyjollykidd]

There are $30 over-the-counter, palm-sized devices fast dann test Both blood sugar (diabetes) and cholesterol. No reason they can't be produced with diagnostic programming for LINE as well, or other home blood test. Diabetes testing kits and supplies are covered by insurance.

[@pyritenightmare]

A layman's hypothesis on a very good reason for LINE-1 to exist: Twofold. One, to put pressure on (the evolution of) cells to be able to repair genetic damage or induce apoptosis if it's beyond repair. Secondly, *as* a means of detecting genetic damage. If LINE-1 is activated that means something has activated it, and while there isn't any way to detect LINE-1 itself, the more it copies itself in the more likely the cell experiences enough damage to either induce apoptosis or fail entirely. The activation could be a random mutation, could be damage like radiation, could be a virus or a botched repair, but it's something that may have been missed otherwise and the cell can't know if it sustained more damage. It also means the repair systems are failing, since it wasn't deactivated in time for it to cause problems. If this is the case, cancer cells having it activated may make sense: If the damage caused by LINE-1 was beneficial to becoming cancer (such as suppressing a method of apoptosis), the cells that originate from that cancerous or proto-cancerous cell would keep the same mutation. Even if LINE-1 isn't still helpful beyond that, it would be present because it's part of what made the original able to become cancerous at all.

[@awaredeshmukh3202]

This seems interesting, but wouldn't any benefit from being able to DETECT LINE-1 proteins be smaller than the benefit of not having them at all? Since they're likely to be CAUSING some of the problems that are then detectable, and probably there will also be some LINE-1 cancers that slip through the cracks. I guess the question is, are you more likely to have a LINE-1 cancer that slips through the detection cracks even if there IS such a detection system, or are you more likely to have a cancer that would have happened anyways that happens to also turn on LINE-1 and get itself (possibly) detected?

[@frederikhansson1333]

As a biotech engineer, I firmly believe, there is no such a thing as "junk DNA"

[@hannahbanana7834]

As a non biotech engineer, I also firmly believe that there is no such thing. It seems silly for your cells to continually produce something considered useless

[@fyang1429]

As a to be virologist, I believe there are junk DNA - they are just old retroviruses that accumulated enough mutations to do anything meaningful. Since DNA is cheap to copy for high eukaryotes, there’s probably just not enough evolutionary pressure to get rid of those useless sequences

[@DJFracus]

As a programmer, it seems highly unlikely that a semi-random self-selecting iterative process such as evolution would result in zero redundant code.

[@hannahbanana7834]

@@DJFracus Oh redundant for sure, but useless? I don't think so. Maybe useless now but it had to have been useful at one point in time, no?

[@Pyriold]

@@hannahbanana7834 It can even be worse than useless if it's very hard to get rid of.

[@BabyHaylien]

Thanks again, Hank and the scishow team! You guys taught me the majority of information I keep in my well *of random knowledge ❤ 📚

[@thehomeschoolinglibrarian]

This could be an amazing first line of defense since the earlier we can detect cancer the easier it is to treat. I would love to see this as part of everyone's yearly physical including babies and the elderly.

[@redflamearrow7113]

That would be great!

[@fake-inafakerson8087]

Line1 is fascinating. It could be a generic parasite, but maybe it helps us somehow by helping us evolving by breaking our genes in new ways

[@Echo81Rumple83]

aside from testing for possible cancers, i would be ecstatic if they found a similar testing method in identifying any autoimmune diseases, because i seem to be getting one of everything rn and it's frustrating to keep up with it >w

[@ThomasBomb45]

Have you asked your doctor if there are tests? There are tests for some parts of immune function

[@watsonwrote]

They can test for the antibodies in most cases. Like my thyroid disease was determined to be autoimmune when they found the antibodies against my thyroid in my blood.

[@CricketsBay]

They're lying. They just don't want to do the tests. As the poster below said, demand antibody tests for everything, especially thyroid, kidney cells, lung cells, skin cells (yes, this can happen), and blood vessels, collagen, spinal fluid, and brain cells. Also, an Inflammation test does not rule out Rheumatoid Arthritis or Lupus if the Inflammation numbers come back low, no matter how much doctors insist it does.

[@katiekane5247]

Stop making your immune system angry!

[@ChinnuSped]

I love this channel not only because it provides anything and everything to us and educate us, but also they provide their sources in their description helps people to do their own research or use those links to provide the references in our study thesis or projects

[@fabricdragon]

so great to see Hank doing so well!!! and with such exciting news!

[@rodon91]

Its great to see youre doing well. Thanks for continuing to make educational videos.

[@elainebradley8213]

I read the article on this but you clarified it beautifully. Thanks

[@shellieburgoyne9555]

This makes me wonder if “Line 1” is responsible for “turning on” endometriosis, which is cancer-like itself. Endometriosis has so much fun spreading through the body, and causing females tremendous physical pain.

[@CricketsBay]

Endometriosis caused during fetal development. It happens when cells from the uterine lining get out into the abdomen amongst the intestines instead of being contained inside fetus's developing uterus when the fetus is forming. The uterus is not an organ sealed at the top in genetically female fetuses until relatively late in development, so it's not hard for cells from inside the fetus's uterus to get out into the fetus's body.

[@shellieburgoyne9555]

@@CricketsBay oh believe me, there are at least 4-5 different ways endometriosis can grow. Unfortunately, I (53f) have been dealing with this disease since I was 13 😭😭 It’s really bad when you have read and educated yourself…..then you almost know more than the gynecologist 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ I learned how to advocate for myself, but it was NOT an easy journey. I still deal with this disease even though I’m post menopausal

[@3X3NTR1K]

Maybe LINE-1 is useful in the fact of taking up space? Too much is a problem but maybe it being there allows new genes to replace it without breaking anything important?

[@dianafossi1295]

I love Hank's new curls!!

[@chelseasmith9242]

I love this channel and glad to be here 🙂😊❤️!

[@selgeaus]

I recently been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and decided to do a gene testing, which cost me more than $400 and the test was "inconclusive"

[@rhiannablumberg4803]

Wow this is incredible!!! TY science and SCIENTISTS!!!!❤❤❤

[@dolvana]

Great work.

[@brandongriest44]

Medical science is BOOMING right now and its so exciting. mRNA treatments, new cancer detections, gene therapies, and AI protein folding algorithms. It feels like some major solutions are just on the horizon! Perhaps "incurable" is just the magic science hadn't yet explained, and now, we know science.

[@barbaramiller17]

Love how you got that “spike chance” in there.

[@maxdon2001]

Great video!

[@fredlight9963]

Wouldn't the proteins expressed by line-1 allow the immune system to target cells once they go cancerous? That would be a good reason to evolve this despite "having no purpose". A kind of additional CRC check that the cell isn't corrupted (for those with IT backgrounds ;) )

[@StephenXootfly]

Low levels of LINE-1 proteins are (more ORF1 than 2) exist in early embryonic development that they would be viewed as “self” rather than “nonself” so would be unlikely to produce an immune response in cancer cells.

[@awaredeshmukh3202]

Actually though, this + the weird vaccines video from before makes me wonder, can you vaccinate yourself against LINE-1 proteins? When you're no longer an embryo??

[@ciaopizzabella]

Great. When can we expect this to hit the market?

[@kateisblue]

Is this the blood test that the NHS were testing in the UK? I was super excited when i heard about it and it seemed to be doing super well!

[@Pou1gie1]

@5:30 I thought Galleri tests for 50 cancers. It's currently available, and does the same thing they are describing in this video as being for the "future".

[@mysticthecatninja]

Please let this become available everywhere for everyone. Amazing. :)

[@marksmod]

I know gmo humans is a bit of a touchy subject, but considering this info, two possible mods present itself: a) remove LINE1 or more interestingly: b) modify LINE1 in such a way to include genes to initiate apoptosis, but not mess with the methylation in healthy cells. The effect option b) has should be obvious: in the case that a cell goes rogue (or genetic chaos or whatever you want to call it), the self destruction genes go live.

[@nadiaplaysgames2550]

Agreed touchy subject but stuff like what you said I think is important think about and that funny mustach guy was trying to make inbread monoculture humans the idea is good but nut case politicians and corporations will ruin it

[@markholm7050]

You did a good job of explaining this, better than average, even for Sci Show. Pin this script up on the wall as an example of how to do it.

[@jacksontaylor5476]

Hank you look good bro 💪 hope you feel as well as you look👍

[@bernob9770]

Very cool!

[@andrewalmonte1415]

Very interesting! Do expression levels vary between different cancers? And does it distinguish between benign and malignant lesions (i.e., by expression or blood serum levels)?

[@Sprinklgrl]

I hope it works for lymphoma and leukemia because im terrified of developing either as they both have super nonspecific symptoms in the early stages when they’re most treatable :( and my family members have had both

[@CricketsBay]

Look for a clinical trial detecting cancer cells in blood in your area.

[@gowanhewlett745]

Hank is splendid favourite presenter🤝

[@rockarollawmn]

Welcome back, Hank!

[@damomo13]

Always good

[@bakawaki]

Finally that's some really great news

[@Thaythichgiachanh262]

Thanks for all your great advice. I really enjoy watching your videos, they provide a lot of knowledge and are very helpful on a daily basis in choosing food when shopping, etc. Thank you ❤✨

[@tjdime]

Interesting...could line one be involved in working toward the full shut down of the human body, ie; death. Is it active in other creatures. Much food for thought..smiles..

[@lakehuron7733]

Great video as always! We need a test for Bovine Leukosis Virus as BLV DNA is being found in breast cancer tissue.

[@CricketsBay]

Scientists concluded in 2020 that BLV in humans is foodborne, contracted mainly from drinking unpasteurized milk (aka raw milk) or eating unpasteurized/unaged cheese, and from eating raw beef (same way mad cow disease is contracted). There's been lots of studies saying this. It's found mainly in fatty breast tissue because that's tested frequently, but can be in any fatty tissue in the human body.

[@jackielinde7568]

Did anyone hear how Hank Green describe the Orf1P testing machine and get flashes of Elizabeth Holms and Theranos? Remember her company was supposedly producing a maching that could test for a lot of deseases? I'm going to hold my breath on the Orf1P machine until it's been peer reviewed.

[@eliscanfield3913]

Just a wee bit. It does sound a little more plausible to me, though, since it's not testing for wildly different things.

[@jackielinde7568]

@@eliscanfield3913 Oh, I'm not doubting it's plausibility. But maybe I'm just old and jaded. When I start hearing bold claims, the first thing that goes through my head is "Here we go again!" But still, I hope this is a thing that can be verified in independent testing.

[@S3lkie-Gutz]

@@jackielinde7568 yeahhhh we've been through the trenches, at least it's intended for first-line testing to get a patient referrals to specialists specialized testing and treatment. F*ck Holmes for killing the innate childlike excitement and curiosity that project could've had for me

[@erikals]

good stuff 💪💪💪💪

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

Brilliant 👏 😊😊😊

[@bornwithoutconsentobviously]

I understand you’re enthousiastic about it, my ears like to take things a bit slower though…

[@gregsettle9725]

Glad to see you making content again. As last I read in the literature there is no "Junk DNA". There is a lot of DNA that we don't know what it does, however. LINE-1 seems to be the biological definition of many of the old computer viruses. Interesting video.

[@rienjen]

This is super cool.

[@AccidentalNinja]

Attaching methyl groups? As in CH3? Is that along the backbone to disrupt where the proteins can attach to copy the gene?

[@Vellark]

Line 1 giving the vibe of an old bar regular that doesn’t cause too much trouble if you keep an eye on him. But as soon as some cancer meathead starts throwing punches and you get distracted, ol’ Line 1 is hunched over the bar guzzling beer directly from the tap

[@caroljo420]

Modern medical science is WONDERFUL!!! In 1957, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. If I had lived in any southern state or any one of several other states, I could've been placed in a hospital for epileptics and "the feeble-minded," and involuntarily sterilized. Once a person is there, there's no getting out, and the treatment of those "patients" was horrendous. But I am grateful to be in California, where I lived a relatively normal life. Once, in 1984, I had a seizure in a shelter for battered women, and a woman there grabbed a broom, proclaiming that she needed to "beat the demons out" of me. My son, who had just turned four, stopped her. He's been protecting me ever since, but why would anyone in the late 20th century be so scientifically ignorant?!? I blame religion.

[@jesseandersen4055]

This is the kind of thing that sounds like it should be standard in all pcp visits standard with other blood tests.

[@user-so6nh4jm4d]

The Internet says a lot about EMFs produced by networking equipment, power sources, and some natural objects can impact sleep and cause cancer. However, studies are rather limited. It would be interesting to see a video by this channel discussing the health impacts, if any, of common EMF exposure to humans.

[@CricketsBay]

Search their older videos. I think there's at least 2 on EMF on humans.

[@nobody.of.importance]

You probably already know this, but energy travels through the electromagnetic fields in the form of light waves. While higher energy rays can have serious and dangerous effects on your health, below the ionizing energy level, it's pretty much entirely harmless. You might get a tad warm standing next to a high power radio transmission tower, but otherwise it's all woowoo. That being said, don't touch radio towers. There's a lot of power flowing through em and that definitely WILL hurt you.

[@NotSoNormal1987]

This could be great as an early screening tool for cancers that everyone could take during routine checkups. If we can catch cancers before they have caused noticable symptoms, we could potentially save a lot of lives.

[@drbettyschueler3235]

My oncologist uses a blood test to see if my cancer cells are multiplying, and thus, likely to be moving to a new site. I'm having a PET scan, in a few days, to see if my multiplying cancer cells have set up shop somewhere new. I've already got tumors in multiple areas, but so far the cancer hasn't invaded a critical area that resists treatment. such as the pancreas. It would be great if this blood test becomes widely available. I had multiple physicians blow off my cancer concerns, for two years, which gave my cancer the opportunity to spread before detection. This new test could have prevented that from happening and saved me 30 years of toxic treatments.

[@nobody.of.importance]

I do wish doctors would be more willing to listen to their patients, I hear stories like this way too frequently. Best of luck in beating it. We cheered on Hank in his battle and we're here for you, too.

[@General12th]

Hi Hank! Who knew cancer could be so... rambunctious?

[@mrunmayidalal260]

this is great and should be implemented as a screening test at least for the common cancers cuz there'll be few chances of false outcomes.

[@TinkeringOP]

Where do they offer this test? I have checked for diagnostic labs to no avail.

[@pegasBaO23]

Does line1 when placed in middle of different gene sequence cause mutation and thus creation of different gene if so that could be it's purpose create mutations so organisms can adapt faster

[@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu]

Genetic interloper threw me for a loop.

[@brycevining4500]

I have an idea for testing junk dna: find a relatively simple organism such as some kind of plant of even a fruit fly then remove presumed junk dna in test subjects to be grown in a laboratory.

[@Ceelvain]

Yeah! "Remove junk DNA". Unfortunately, I guess that this kind of large scale project would need something much more reliable and effective than a mere CRISPR-CAS9 for gene editing.

[@abbyheller7036]

Yeah genetic knock outs are an important way we validate junk DNA. First we can check to see if any of the DNA is being made into RNA, which is the middle step between DNA and proteins. But a secondary check is usually using a gene edit or some kind to completely remove the genetic sequence and make sure that it’s removal isn’t going to cause any issue. But we don’t need to just remove it from lower organisms we can do this in human cell lines as well

[@davidpavel5017]

Damn its good to see Hank with lush locks again

[@Alexadria205]

I just love science!

[@ZAELish]

it will probably be used as part of a larger sweet of blood tests taken once a year for people over a certain age. So if we detect such a combination of protiens and other bio markers such as cell free RNAs to more accuratly detect cancers were it is located and the specific subtype and nip it in stage 1 or even stage zero maybe reaching the point ow it looks like such and such numbers are up looks like you have pre canceras cell in your brain that could become glioblastoma in 2 to 3 years you will need this injection once a month for 6 months to get rid of them ect

[@curtiswfranks]

There is something kinda beautiful, to me, about LINE-1. Regardless of whether it was a genetic sequence which simplified over time (basically as a survival strategy) or arose this way as some sort of bug, or whatever, it shows that all that genetic things try to do is reproduce. It does not matter whether they do nothing and have no purpose. Copy-pasting 𝘪𝘴 the point; it is the whole shebang. In a sense, certain configurations in Conway's Game of Life do exactly the same thing. I am sure that there are other analog examples too. Replication is all that matters.

[@curtiswfranks]

Also, it might be an argument against intelligent design. Not only because it does not have a purpose beyond copy-pasting itself until it consumes the universe, but also because similar behavior can emerge spontaneously from other assemblages.

[@pineapplepotato6985]

Theranos makes me wary of this kinda stuff but I hope it’s truly useful

[@davidmcbrine4527]

Would like to see that 2023 paper which made the claim of detecting a wide range of cancers. Can I get pointed to where I can find that?

[@vincentmcbean6512]

If this thing cuts and pastes itself wherever it feels like, maybe it’s possible for it to be used similar to CAS-5, CAS-9

[@willdrewery5465]

If they can use LINE 1 for cancer detection, then could they also use CRISPR or some other method to edit it as a cancer treatment?

[@christinamay6596]

Woot for science 🎉

[@fariesz6786]

ORF1 and ORF2 to me sound the names of two Austrian public broadcast channels

[@restingsleep]

if im not mistaken, orf1p should have a full name of something like "open reading frame 1 protein" which is so funny because every protein has a reading frame for translating dna codons into protein which is read in 3s, so every protein i believe has 3 orfs.

[@Alice_Walker]

Cool. Go science! 💜

[@bob_smite]

Can't LINEs still affect gene expression when inserted elsewhere in the genome, so they are not necessarily garbage? For example, if a LINE is inserted in a middle of some coding region, between a start and stop codon, the LINE would change the resultant protein for that region. Or maybe LINEs generally cause garbage proteins that don't do anything and are destined to the lysosome?

[@dbrav727]

Not sure if this is a good reason, but couldn’t some degree of sequences cutting and pasting themselves lead to mutations that could potentially be favorable? It may also slowly help increase genetic diversity over time and also affect crossing over in meiosis?

[@robertfindley921]

Interesting. But less than $3 to produce means $4000 in the United States, for those with health insurance. $17,000 for those without.

[@jbrown8601]

💯

[@inregionecaecorum]

I am part of an trial to see if various cancers can be detected from a blood test. Half will be in the control group and half will not, but I still think it is a good idea as I do not lose anything from being a participant except for a syringe full of blood every year during the term of the trial.

[@AILIT1]

Goooo science!

[@ShadowDrakken]

Less than $3 to produce, more than $30,000 on the hospital bill.

[@TheDamagedKoda]

This is fkin amazing