Question

Part A: Examine the following research summary and analyze it based on the following questions.

1.Identify the goal/question of the study.
2.What conclusions were drawn from the study? Identify any limitations or flaws in the research design.
3.Was this study ethical? Use The Georgetown Mantra principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice to justify your answer.

Research Study Summary
Chester Southam worked in the Division of Experimental Pathology at the prestigious Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in the 1950s. At this time, many scientists did not understand the genetic basis of cancer. It was known that cultured human cancer cells could be injected into animal models (“heterotransplantation”) to cause cancer. Southam wondered what would happen if he injected such cells into other people (“homotransplantation”). He hoped to learn more about how the immune system functioned in the presence of cancer; he was especially interested in whether researchers who worked regularly with these cultured cancer cells, or patients given vaccines developed using these cancer cells, might be in danger of developing cancer.
In the first part of his study, Southam solicited 14 volunteers who already had incurable cancer (which was most cancer at the time) and “very short” life expectancies. He told the patients he was giving them an injection to test their immune systems and made certain they were willing to undergo later biopsies for the purposes of the study. He did not tell them they were being injected with cancer cells because he did not want to confuse them about their own diagnosis or frighten them unnecessarily. Southam, Moore, and Rhoades made “[t]wenty-four homologous implantations of seven cancer cell lines … in 14 cancer patients” (159). “Usually a single preparation was inoculated at one or two sites, but a few recipients received two to four cell types simultaneously, and one received a total of seven preparations on two occasions” (ibid., 158).
He also gave them a tiny tattoo at each injection site for later reference. Each injection caused slight reddening and swelling that subsided within 3 days. All 7 different lines of implanted cells resulted in
Portions of this assignment have been adapted from: NATIONAL CENTER FOR CASE STUDY TEACHING IN SCIENCE “Which of These Is True?” by Schnee and Bixler. Case copyright held by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
BIOL 3308: Cancer Biology Fall 2016 Dr. Visbal
formation of “palpable nodules” (i.e., lumps that could be felt through the skin). Most of these nodules were removed and studied; researchers found actively dividing cancer cells in all of them. If the nodules were not removed, they disappeared spontaneously in 4–6weeks. However, they grew back in 4 patients, and in 2 patients, persisted until death (6 or 8 weeks after injection). In one of these, the injected cancer metastasized to the patient’s axillary (underarm) lymph nodes (because the injected cancer was of a different type than the patient’s original cancer, it was possible to identify that in the lymph node as originating from the injection). No growth was detected from injections of normal cells, even though cancer cells injected into the same patients at the same time did lead to the formation of nodules. Southam and his colleagues then wondered whether the cancer cells would be able to grow in patients who did not already have cancer. For this study, they performed the same procedures on 14 volunteers from the Ohio State Penitentiary in June 1956.
The results in these subjects differed: the initial reddening and swelling persisted for a week or more. Nodules grew and were removed for study, but cell division and other evidence of cancer were present in only 4 of 15 biopsies. Nodules that were not removed disappeared within 3 weeks and did not recur within 5 months. The researchers stated in their 1957 paper that they could not yet conclude whether the differences between the cancer patients and normal subjects were due to the earlier presence of cancer itself or to the fact that the cancer patients were already debilitated by their disease. However, the cancer patients did produce antibodies to viruses with which they were injected around the same time, suggesting that the growth of nodules at the injection sites was not simply due to a complete lack of immune system activity.
References: Southam, C.M., A. Moore, and C.P. Rhoades. 1957. Homotransplantation of human cell lines. Science 25: 158–160.

Answer 1

1.Identify the goal/question of the study.
Question: What would happen if we inject cancer cells into other individual?

Goal: Determine if there is a risk factor of cancer using vaccines developed with cancer cells in patients

2.What conclusions were drawn from the study? Identify any limitations or flaws in the research design.

Flaws: The different treatments used in patients should be the same for every individual. He used preparations with different types of cancer cells at the same time. He should test only one cell type in each individual to determine the results produced by each single cell type.

Conclusion: The could not find a notable difference between healthy patients and cancer patients. However they found that the lack of the immune system is not result of the vaccine treatment since patients were able to produce antibodies.

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