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Asked by to Becky, Clara, Daniel, Simon, Thomas on 16 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 16 Mar 2014:
Some cancers we already know how to cure, some cancer we know how to treat, some others we might even know how to prevent.
What we currently lack is a comprehensive understanding of what triggers cancers in general. Each cancer is looked at independently from each other and we have to address the symptoms, most of the times, rather than the source.
It is a bit like particle physics, in a way: there are many processes, many things going on from the apple falling, to magnets, to the LHC. What we seek a unifying theory that connects all the parts together. In that sense, the Higgs boson plays a crucial role in completing what is referred to as the Standard Model of particle physics.
As for a cure for cancer, I can only do my bit to help with researching better ways to diagnose and cure symptoms, through projects like MEDICIS at CERN (look it up!). In that project, you won’t find my name anywhere, but when the project was about to go down because they did not have the last component, I simply put two people in touch we each other. The next thing you know, they are digging the first hole for the construction of a new building next to each other! I felt quite proud of that, though this contribution might be lost in history (or can i hope to make it as a footnote in a history of science book?!)
On a different note, you have many self-funded and crowd-funded projects looking into the origins of cancer for a better way to beat it. One of those (and naturally my favourite!) is that lead by my mother and sister, called A1 Stem Cells. Did I ever mention that research is a family business? 😉
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Clara Nellist answered on 16 Mar 2014:
We currently have treatments for different types of cancer, but some of them are more successful than others and some of them can be very aggressive and difficult for the person being treated.
One of these is chemotherapy. Cancer cells divide rapidly (which is what creates the tumour) and chemotherapy is a process that uses chemicals to attack these cells that divide rapidly. Another type of cell in the body that divides rapidly are hair follicles and that’s why chemotherapy causes the hair loss a lot of people having cancer treatment. This treatment also make the immune system of the person very weak and they’re more likely to get sick from something else. Scientists are working on better chemicals to use that only target the cancer cells.
There are also other treatments like surgery (to cut the cancer out) or radiotherapy to use radiation to kill the cancer tumour by damaging the DNA in the cancer cells which kills it. Unfortunately, heathy cells nearby are also damaged by the radiation. Some efforts to reduce this damage to heathy cells are done by rotating the patient, if possible, to send the radiation beam from several directions. This limits how much radiation healthy cells get and maximises the damage to the cancer. This is another area that scientists are working on improving and it’s close to my area of research. To make radiotherapy better you can use a heavier particle. This is because a heavier particle will deposit its energy (causing the damage) in a specific place, where as a lighter particle will spread the damage out (not good if you only want to get the cancer). But to get these heavier particles at the right energy we want them, we can use a smaller version of the Large Hadron Collider and put it into hospitals. Then the cancer tumour will get a lot of damage and the heathy tissue, very little at all, meaning the person will recover fast! It’s also much better for cancers of the eye, for example, because you really don’t want to damage the brain behind it!!
Biologists and medical researchers are studying cancer cells to try to find other ways to prevent them from happening in the first place! For example they’re studying the naked mole rat (which is a real animal – honest!)? Because as far as we know the naked mole rat doesn’t ever get cancer. This 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.
However, this is not my area of expertise’s so I can’t tell you much more about it, but I know that there is lot of effort going into cancer research and if there’s a solution out there, we’ll find it!
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Simon Albright answered on 17 Mar 2014:
I don’t think there will ever be a “silver bullet” – something/things which is/are guaranteed to cure every cancer.
But we can cure some cancers already, and are working on new ways all the time.
There’s an application of some of my work which helps fight cancer called Boron Neutron Capture Therapy. You give someone a drug with boron in that gets absorbed by the cancer and then blast them with neutrons. The neutrons make the boron split up and the fragments blast apart the DNA of the cancer cell but don’t go any further leaving healthy tissure almost untouched!
Comments
u11wetherallp commented on :
Thank you, xx
Clara commented on :
You are welcome! If you have more questions for us, please send them over! 🙂