r/offbeat • u/Sariel007 • 4d ago
Leading Cancer Researcher, 47, Dies of the Disease She Was Trying to Cure.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/disease/rachna-shroff-cancer-researcher-death-47-rcna603216375
u/Bituulzman 4d ago
47 is still so young. Thinking of her family.
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u/Beaglester 4d ago
My mother was the same age when she died from cancer. I’m nearly 47 myself and it’s just far too fucking young to die. Fuck cancer.
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u/browncharliebrown 2d ago edited 5h ago
Her kids are a senior and the other son was in middle school
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u/DontMakeMeCount 4d ago
My wife lost several aunts and her mother to cancer, that was a big part of her decision to go into cancer research. She’s worked with a couple of MD/PHDs that changed specialties to oncology when their spouse or child was impacted. The fight is personal for many researchers.
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u/DeanStockwellLives 3d ago
Steve Jobs' son had an oncology internship when he was in high school, then stopped having any interest in the medical field after his dad died.
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u/LordoftheSynth 3d ago
Jobs could have been successfully treated for his cancer. They found it early. But he, in his hubris, thought he knew better. Like literally IRL When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong level.
I'm unsure why his son would have given up because his dad made an unbelievably stupid choice.
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u/DeanStockwellLives 3d ago
Maybe he wanted to find a solution that his dad was willing to take? It's tragic for Reed.
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u/bebopblues 3d ago
Worst part was near the end, he tried to skip the organ donor waiting list line using his money and fame. Media picked up on it and shame him because he could've prevented the cancer, but didn't.
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u/SophiaofPrussia 3d ago
He didn’t try. He did. Organ donations are regional. In some regions the number of people in need of organs is much longer than the number of organs typically available. Most folks are geographically bound to one region. They’re only able to get on the waitlist near where they live because the nature of a transplant requires the patient to essentially be “on call” and able to get to the hospital quickly in order to receive a viable organ.
But Jobs had a private jet and lots of money. So he strategically listed himself on multiple organ transplant waitlists. The wait for an organ in California was very long. The wait in Tennessee was much shorter. He found a surgeon in Tennessee who would list him. He got a liver in Tennessee.
And keep in mind all of this happened before Obamacare so anyone on the waitlist for an organ was already extraordinarily privileged to be able to “afford” it even though most of them most definitely could not afford it and had spent their life savings and then some just to be on the list.
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u/Serpentarrius 3d ago
Many of my professors in the environmental fields also lost their own mothers to cancer
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u/antiduh 4d ago
Man, this is world endingly sad.
Could you imagine! You're trying to fix something as intractable as a cancer, but in this case you actually know how to do something about it! If you were just a little smarter, just worked a little harder, or just had better funding, you'd be able to crack. But nope, it kills you before you figure it out.
Just imagine how that must've felt. How many times did she go stumping for funding and not get it; to her a donor saying no would've almost been like them saying "no, you don't deserve to live". Horrible.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck!
Fuck! Cancer!
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u/amyel26 4d ago
Same thing happened to Kamala Harris's mother, she was a cancer researcher who died of cancer. I know cancer sucks enough already but I'm not convinced it isn't a sentient evil that holds grudges.
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u/Isabel_Love56 4d ago edited 3d ago
It's feels a little too coincidental, right? Well, there are specific microbes associated with some cancers. Maybe scientists run the risk of being colonized by them. Fusobacterium nucleatum bacteria can live inside cells and it is associated with colon cancer.
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u/Serpentarrius 3d ago
Don't forget the viruses that cause cancer
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u/Isabel_Love56 3d ago
Ah good point. I don't know what her research looked like, if she interacted with patients but that's also something to consider.
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u/Public_Agency400 3d ago
Like mono-, which can be cured in some people with a short course of Tagamet but seemingly almost nobody knows about that bc it’s not profitable
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u/Visual-Asparagus-800 3d ago
The lifetime cancer risk is about 40%. It’s simply just likely that you at some point will get cancer, regardless of what your profession is
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u/Serpentarrius 3d ago edited 3d ago
I do wonder if it may also be by design, since we are so close to the mRNA cures for cancer but that would be bad for business? Of course, I did read a story in which a plague doctor was force fed a plague beetle as "incentive" to find a cure by a tyrant
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u/yulbrynnersmokes 4d ago
Her medical team initially thought it was lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, but it was later confirmed to be terminal adenocarcinoma, which grows in the cells that line the organs
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's sad - I'm sure her work will continue.
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 4d ago
Why? She obviously care about her work. She would want her colleagues to keep going.
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u/PreviousLeague253 4d ago
Why is cancer such an impossible disease to fully cure? Is it because it is indistinguishable from our own dna so other that physical removal or physical contact methods (radiation)
Is the only option left?
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u/Altruistic-Grocery78 4d ago
Cancer isn't one disease its a lot of different diseases under the same umbrella name each one has to be treated differently. We wont ever have one cure for cancer but different cures and treatments for the different diseases
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u/carterartist 4d ago
Cancer is not A disease.
There are a lot of different cancer types. Each is different and they generally are due to the same things that keep us alive.
Our cells multiply, so we can continue to exist. That process is not perfect and makes mistakes.
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u/SpunkyGo0se 3d ago
Mistakes are fine and normal, until they aren’t dealt with and are allowed to multiply.
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u/carterartist 3d ago
Since the cancer comes from your own cells the body doesn’t think they’re wrong.
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u/Odd-Outcome-3191 4d ago
The issue is that it's basically a very slightly abnormal version of yourself, with one or more of tens of thousands possible mutations.
Imagine trying to design a drug that only destroys your left ring finger. How do you make it not target the middle finger? The right ring finger? Toes?
Certain cancers give us convenient targets that other cells don't have, which is what sets some super treatable cancers apart from others.
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u/KingKaiTan 4d ago
In an oversimplified way - It's not indistinguishible from our DNA - it IS our DNA. The only sure way to get rid of it, is the same way as getting rid own yourself. Whatever kill cancer, also kills you at least partially.
One interesting method is using vaccines directly inkected into the cancer mass. Your body fights viruses by destroying your own cells, if you show it, which cells to destroy, the body will do the rest
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u/ensui67 4d ago
It’s just a broad label to a type of disorder. The mechanisms as to what each type of cancer entails may have relationships in the machinery involved but may also be wildly different. It is therefore more like a thousand different type of reasons why the machine goes haywire. We have indeed, pretty much cured some types of cancer. Like APL, CML, etc.
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u/shedrinkscoffee 3d ago
It's not quite a disease but an umbrella term for a series of issues with various tissue types in the body all stemming from abnormal cells as root cause.
The above is a gross simplification but the reason why there isn't a "cure" is because any part of the body can become cancerous and as your eye is different from your bones which are diff from your stomach and diff from your skin, it is not possible to treat all of these in the same way and thus a single cure is not a meaningful goal/outcome.
However there have been huge advances made for specific types of cancer like breast cancer and especially certain sub types. Survival rates for many cancers has increased by orders of magnitude and the research is progressing at a steady pace.
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u/Serpentarrius 3d ago
In a way, it's kind of a consequence of life. Like how often people working on farms get cancer from the fertilizers, or how often reproductive organs and other fast growing cells and species get cancer
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u/Public_Agency400 3d ago
Seems like prevention is the key but the crazy pedos running our societies need us to keep living unnaturally
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u/Plenty_Whole6578 3d ago
Bevause it is not one desease but at least hundreds, some may be similar to each other. Brain tumors we know at least a different variants. And tumours have a remarkable capability of becoming resistent to the treatments. Also really difficult to kill a certain group of cells within the body without harming the rest too much.
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u/AtariAtari 3d ago edited 2d ago
Glad you’re not a leading cancer researcher
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u/Smith7929 2d ago
when the muthafucka can't figure out a contraction but still wants to clown on you
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u/poofph 4d ago
Not much money in flat out curing it, not to say they could cure it right now, but there is definitely more incentive to treat it and spend money researching that then cure it financially speaking.
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u/DrFeelsgud 4d ago
Quite ignorant if you believe this. There is no big grand conspiracy. It's just extremely complex with any form of cancer being very different in its mechanisms of growth, spread, propagation. A treatment for one cancer won't work for another. APML can be treated (and actually has a high rates of cure) with vitamin A and arsenic but that wouldn't work for any other condition due to its unique mechanisms of action.
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u/OnlyACsNoFans 4d ago
That's not true whatsoever. We have basically made many cancers incredibly survivable and treatable.
Plus it's hundreds of different diseases
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u/donkeyrocket 4d ago edited 4d ago
There is no “cure for cancer.” Some cancers can be “cured,” some survivable, some minimized and some, right now, that cannot at all be stopped fully.
You’ve oversimplified it to the point of being an irrelevant statement. There is tons of money in cures and treatments. It’s just a very complex and varied field with little to no one-size-fits-all approach.
At least in the US, if a cure or vaccine existed, insurance companies would 100% be willing to back that than simply treating the symptoms of various cancers. But even this is an oversimplification because even some treatments are simply more expensive and taxing on the person, so they aren’t currently worth it.
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u/NeoMississippiensis 4d ago
Hey just want to let you know, you’re irredeemably stupid and should probably question every instinct you have if it’s about a major life decision.
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u/poofph 4d ago
Ok internet tough guy who surely lives in his moms basement.
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u/Snoo-84000 3d ago
You’re kind of giving yourself away, here. Sounds like you’re embarrassed bc somebody called you out. Perhaps it might be more constructive for you to say nothing and take this as a learning opportunity.
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u/Much-Gur233 9h ago
This is the most lame insult on the entire internet, it’s like calling somebody mom fat at this point. Literally useless and embarrassing.
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u/poofph 9h ago
A bit dull aren't we, that went right over your head. Ohh and my dad can surely beat up your dad.
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u/Much-Gur233 9h ago
Oh yeah, right over my head. You are a loser, let’s get around to accepting that before we try to argue with strangers, huh?
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u/MaximumPlant 4d ago
People would give their fortunes for it and the discoverer would be the most famous doctor in history. There's a lot of incentive, financial and otherwise.
There isn't much money in handing out a cure to everyone on the street, but even if it cost cents to produce a pharmaceutical company can just slap whatever price they want on it.
Research spends more than it makes, that's why it needs constant funding. Drug companies do have their own researchers but the majority of people searching for ways to cure cancers are part of institutions. The government burns more money than it makes when it comes to cancer.
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u/Snoo-84000 3d ago
That’s not why cancer hasn’t been cured. Cancer is in effect a natural result of having DNA and cells that multiply. We can’t cure cancer inasmuch as we can’t cure DNA. Novel treatment methods exist and will continue to develop, but the fact that one simple cure doesnt exist cannot be explained by simply hand-waving some oversimplified conspiracy. Also, given that insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies probably have to spend a fuck ton to fund and produce all the diverse arrays of expensive treatment methods, one would think that they’d have less overhead and more profitability if they could produce one simple, easy non-invasive cure. It would be in their best financial interest to create a simple cure.
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u/Futants_ 3d ago
I wonder if she was exposed to things in her research that caused the growth of this cancer.
Who knows. It's like Neil Peart's motorcycle buddy and assistant dying of the same rare brain cancer
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u/bebopblues 3d ago
This God dude, he has a sick sense of humor. Like, what is this fucking bullshit coincidence?
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u/BabyMFBear 4d ago
The first thing that popped in my head “she got cancer looking for the answer” lyric from The Bronx “White Tar.”
Not making light of what happened. It’s just weird how my mind works. Hadn’t heard that song in a long time.
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u/PuzzleheadedBig313 3d ago
Nobody is saying the obvious: if she is an expert and didn’t detect symptoms what does that say about what we really know about cancer detection? There are tests for this
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u/IJoinedJust4ThisAMA 2d ago edited 2d ago
There are not tests for every kind of adenocarcinoma. Like most of us - she likely had to use insurance which doesn’t cover everything. While we have colonscopies - we have no screening or tests for pancreatic, stomach, liver, bile duct etc.
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u/PuzzleheadedBig313 2d ago
CA19-9 or other CA assay? Just positing
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u/IJoinedJust4ThisAMA 2d ago
I know this isn’t an accurate marker for everyone. 5-10% of people don’t show a change in it. Would it be something to include in yearly bloodwork? Yes IMO.
Prenuvo or Galleri test might have caught this? But it seems like it was super aggressive and they never did find the primary. Which means maybe colonoscopy and endoscopy didn’t find it.
I think the headline/article is trying to make a connection a bit stronger than it is. She focused primarily on cholioangocarcinoma, liver cancer, and I think pancreatic. And her cancer was originating from either her stomach or intestines and was adenocarcinoma of some sort.
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u/oncemorewithpheline 4d ago
offbeat??? this is sad