Previus discussion (from the university press release) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 (498 points | 6 months ago | 140 comments) I'll rehash my comment
They used mice, because they are good for early tries. The researchers had 9 bacterias and only 1 was successful. Experiments in mice are cheaper and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans. (Hey! They even injected the cancer cells in mice and waited a week until it grow. Nobody will approve something like that in humans.)
The title claims that the tumos were eradicated. The title hides that it was a small tumor they injected in the mice and more importantly that it disappeared for two weeks until the experiment ended. It's difficult to guess if it will be useful for humans with bigger tumors because they are harder to detect, and it would work for a interesting enough period like 5 years.
There is also and old comment by octaane https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 I'll quote it partially:
> Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote:
>> "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)"
> PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are PD-L1 positive. [...] Many tumor types are not PD-l1 positive.
> Doxy is an ancient SOC chemo.
> [...]
____MatrixMan__12分钟前
They say:
> Outperforming chemotherapy and immunotherapy
And then later:
> As a facultative anaerobe, it preferentially accumulates within the hypoxic tumor microenvironment, where it rapidly proliferates and exerts direct cytotoxic effects while simultaneously activating a broad immune response. Within hours, tumors become infiltrated with T cells, B cells, and neutrophils, accompanied by surges in key inflammatory cytokines like TNF-α and IFN-γ.
So this is immunotherapy. Although it is clever immunotherapy. Gut bacteria doesn't usually survive long in the bloodstream because there's too much oxygen present (that's part of why it's gut bacteria, its unlikely to go all Leeroy Jenkins on the rest of the organism).
The TME is often so densely packed with growth that its less oxidative than surrounding tissue. So the bacteria that don't find a tumor don't last long enough to cause problems and the ones that do find one see it as a bit of a refuge from the problematic environment and colonize it specifically, throwing off whatever subterfuge the tumor was using to keep the immune system from getting involved.
FRfrellus1小时前
I kid you not, there was a movie with Sean Connery called "Medicine Man" (1992) with this exact same theme.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/?ref_=fn_t_1
In it, Connery finds what looks to be a rare natural cure to all cancer in the Rain Forest (spoiler: not a frog, but equally as weird), and is literally battling the nearby deforesting and bulldozers. For a Sean Connery movie it was bizarre (As a young teen, I saw it in the theaters.. quite a bit less action than a 007 movie but good drama and dramatic Sean Connery acting).
GEGeee1小时前
Very cool research. They just injected mice with 45 different bacterial strains, and then isolated and cultivated the ones that had the best performance. It seems that it might be quite easy to cultivate these strains to target different tumors / specific tumor samples.
Ewingella Americana itself is a quite common bacterial species, but it seems that the effective strain is the frog-derived and cultivated one. So don't go injecting yourself with a random E. Americana.
Full article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2025.2...
TItiffanyh1小时前
To give more credit to this blog post, the NIH published findings on this same subject last year.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/
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Previus discussion (from the university press release) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 (498 points | 6 months ago | 140 comments) I'll rehash my comment They used mice, because they are good for early tries. The researchers had 9 bacterias and only 1 was successful. Experiments in mice are cheaper and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans. (Hey! They even injected the cancer cells in mice and waited a week until it grow. Nobody will approve something like that in humans.) The title claims that the tumos were eradicated. The title hides that it was a small tumor they injected in the mice and more importantly that it disappeared for two weeks until the experiment ended. It's difficult to guess if it will be useful for humans with bigger tumors because they are harder to detect, and it would work for a interesting enough period like 5 years. There is also and old comment by octaane https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 I'll quote it partially: > Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote: >> "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)" > PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are PD-L1 positive. [...] Many tumor types are not PD-l1 positive. > Doxy is an ancient SOC chemo. > [...]
They say: > Outperforming chemotherapy and immunotherapy And then later: > As a facultative anaerobe, it preferentially accumulates within the hypoxic tumor microenvironment, where it rapidly proliferates and exerts direct cytotoxic effects while simultaneously activating a broad immune response. Within hours, tumors become infiltrated with T cells, B cells, and neutrophils, accompanied by surges in key inflammatory cytokines like TNF-α and IFN-γ. So this is immunotherapy. Although it is clever immunotherapy. Gut bacteria doesn't usually survive long in the bloodstream because there's too much oxygen present (that's part of why it's gut bacteria, its unlikely to go all Leeroy Jenkins on the rest of the organism). The TME is often so densely packed with growth that its less oxidative than surrounding tissue. So the bacteria that don't find a tumor don't last long enough to cause problems and the ones that do find one see it as a bit of a refuge from the problematic environment and colonize it specifically, throwing off whatever subterfuge the tumor was using to keep the immune system from getting involved.
I kid you not, there was a movie with Sean Connery called "Medicine Man" (1992) with this exact same theme. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104839/?ref_=fn_t_1 In it, Connery finds what looks to be a rare natural cure to all cancer in the Rain Forest (spoiler: not a frog, but equally as weird), and is literally battling the nearby deforesting and bulldozers. For a Sean Connery movie it was bizarre (As a young teen, I saw it in the theaters.. quite a bit less action than a 007 movie but good drama and dramatic Sean Connery acting).
Very cool research. They just injected mice with 45 different bacterial strains, and then isolated and cultivated the ones that had the best performance. It seems that it might be quite easy to cultivate these strains to target different tumors / specific tumor samples. Ewingella Americana itself is a quite common bacterial species, but it seems that the effective strain is the frog-derived and cultivated one. So don't go injecting yourself with a random E. Americana. Full article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2025.2...
To give more credit to this blog post, the NIH published findings on this same subject last year. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12710904/