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Comment by shevy-java

1 day ago

> We have penicilin that works against all human cells.

Penicillin works against bacteria, in particular gram-positive bacteria; to a lesser extent gram-negative bacteria too (this depends on the cell membrane structure of bacteria; there are other penicillin derivatives that are also more effective on gram-negative bacteria than penicillin is, but by and large the main target will be gram-positive bacteria). It does not work against human cells. If your comparison is about drugs in general, then of course cytotoxic drugs will have an effect; simplest example I can remember off-hand is colchicin. Of course it should work against cancer cells and non-cancer cells, unless there are some mutations where colchicin could no longer bind to, but that seems very very rare, due to the natural target of colchicin involved in cellular division.

It was an analogy. Just like penicillin kills a broad variety of bacteria we also know substances that kill a broad variety of cancer cells. Arsenic, for instance, and shotgun bullets. The problem is they usually select for all cells or all human cells, not cancer cells more specifically.