Pathways . . .

I've mentioned before that my nephew is autistic.

Well, I'm hoping that my sister won't kill me for using her as blog fodder, but . . . that's what I'm gonna do.

She found a DAN! doctor for her son, bade her time on the waitlist, and saw him earlier this week for the first time.  Her excitement was contagious.  And my sister is not a demonstrative type like me.  She's reserved and dignified; she doesn't gush like I do.   Still, I could tell:  she's excited.

But this post will not be about autism.

Nope.  It's about . . . pathways.

Last week I mentioned those thirteen pathways of cancer, the thirteen means by which our cells turn against us and become malignant.  Well, it turns out that the language of pathways is well known in the autism field, as well.  That autism, too, is a pathway disease. 


If you know anything at all about autism, you've probably heard already that it has three components - the neurological, the gastrointestinal, and the immune components.  The "pathways" concept is not quite the same.  But this DAN! doctor told my sis that, somewhere along the way, be it prenatal or at some point during postnatal development, some wires get crossed and things go wrong.  Sometimes it's autism, sometimes it's something else - like cancer. 

So if the smart folks in autism research have figured out that there's a protein pathway in the brain of autistic kids that they can recognize and possibly target therapeutically, does that bear any relation to the cancer folks' recognition of the same capabilities? ("Proteomics."  That's what they're calling it.

Danny Hillis: Understanding cancer through proteomics

www.youtube.com  Here's the link to a discussion of it.  )

When I started this blog, there were two things I wanted to accomplish:  first, to explore the possibilities that certain childhood diseases are causally related, and therefore our interest in research shouldn't be limited to that which is specifically on-topic, because it's all co-relevant.  Secondly, I wanted to come up with our own sort of political platform to lobby and promote policies beneficial to sick kids and their families.  Turns out that the first, which seemed so far-fetched and ambitious, may be an easier sell than the second.

I know, I get a little link-happy sometimes, but you gotta check this one out.  Just takes a minute, and add it to your favorites - pretty fascinating stuff.  While scientists have to be a little pigeon-holed in order to create good research that can be duplicated and verified, the rest of us - the laypersons - can take a step back and see that a picture is beginning to emerge.  Disease is a process.  And while the human body is complex, there seems to be a finite number of processes.  Check this out:  http://www.genome.jp/kegg/disease/

Pretty cool, eh?

So that's it, in a nutshell . . . the pathways theory.  A disease has a pathway. 

While it ticks me off that Harold Varmus of the NCI assured Congress that the science and medical world has childhood cancer under control, I hold out great hope for his ability to see that there is a big picture.  And that the big picture is not just one of cancer.  It's diabetes, too, and Parkinson's, and alzheimer's, and autism.  Each pearl harvested from the sea of scientific and medical wisdom that is the NCI is a treasure for everyone, because those pearls of wisdom are shared.  Anyone can apply the knowledge to any field.  When profits drive research, the natural tendency is to hide knowledge.  When the government is producing the research . . .

It was Varmus himself whose research opened the door to the pathways theory.

Keep your mind wide open.  You never know what will come in.