• Question: If radio therapy works on humans (for curing cancers), can it work on animals too? :)

    Asked by to Thomas, Simon, Daniel, Clara, Becky on 13 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Thomas Elias Cocolios

      Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      It is actually tested on animals first.

      CERN-ISOLDE works in partnership with other institutes to research new cancer treatments. The treated mice have a survival rate of nearly 100%!

    • Photo: Simon Albright

      Simon Albright answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Absolutely! Before we try anything on people we always try it on animals first anyway. But there’s really no difference when it comes to radiotherapy. Whether you’re treating a person, a pig or a gopher you want to put a load of radiation into the cancer cells to kill them off and leave the healthy cells untouched.

    • Photo: Clara Nellist

      Clara Nellist answered on 16 Mar 2014:

      Since I agree with Thomas and Simon I will instead tell you a cool fact about animals and cancer.

      Did you know that there wouldn’t be any point in giving radio therapy to the naked mole rat (real animal – honest!)? This is because as far as we know this animal doesn’t get cancer. Ever! Which is really interesting for scientists working on trying to cure cancer because they can study what keeps the naked mole rat cancer-free, and then see if we can apply it to humans in anyway. Pretty cool! 🙂

Comments