r/science • u/xarc13 • Sep 01 '15

Animal Science Brazilian wasp venom kills cancer cells by opening them up

http://phys.org/news/2015-09-brazilian-wasp-venom-cancer-cells.html
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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '15

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u/3d6skills PhD | Immunology | Cancer Sep 01 '15

The best place to go for someone with no options left is to look on the website of the nearest research institute to see if they are recruiting for clinical trials.

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u/wojx MS|Regulatory Science|Biochemistry Sep 02 '15

To expand on this, www.clinicaltrials.gov has some useful information as well.

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u/NickDerpkins Sep 02 '15

How often do clinical trials actually work? Or are you at that point just dedicating yourself to research?

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u/thisdude415 PhD | Biomedical Engineering Sep 02 '15

They don't work very often.

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u/awallace2992 Sep 02 '15

I'm not sure on any statistics but anecdotally my grandfather participated in a drug trial about 8 years ago for lung cancer that was no longer responding to any treatments. The drug he took in the trial (don't remember the name) helped him a little but he was 82 and had been sick for quite some time, he passed away. But a few weeks ago I saw his oncologist on the news talking about the drug from the trial my grandfather was in. It turns out the drug wasn't effective for the specific kind of lung cancer but it is currently kicking Ovarian Cancer's ass.

While the trial may not have worked for him, he wasn't going to make any progress otherwise so it is cool to know that with more research and experimentation they found out it could work for somebody else. You probably wanted statistics but I think I probably just answered your second question...they're basically dedicating their lives to the research in exchange for a little hope.