Ready to Cure Cancer?

Even before I began my research position, I have frequently heard people of many different areas of focus, science majors included, talk about “curing cancer.” The implication is that somehow, it would be possible to find a treatment or technique that would be able effectively eliminate the phenomenon. This assumption is extraordinarily frustrating to me because it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what cancer is and how it operates, the basics of which should really be common knowledge in this day and age (especially among Bio majors).

One of the critical things that needs to be understood is that the disease encompassed by the term “cancer” is not the result of a single pathogen infecting the body. It is not a virus or a bacterium like HIV or staph showing up and deciding to hang out in your body. Cancer is at its core the result of the machinery that controls regular cell division going awry, resulting in cells that no longer obey the natural controlling mechanisms. Rather than a cell being attacked by an outside agent, cancer is caused by the cell itself “going rogue.” In this state, the cell will continue to divide uncontrollably which will ultimately cause all kinds of problems for the rest of the body.

The reasons why this can happen are quite diverse, immediately shooting down the idea that a “vaccine” or other such panacea could be developed that would prevent cancer from occurring. This brings us to treatment, which is again a tricky situation. Since the “bad cells” are pretty much the same as the rest of your cells, one of the only distinguishing features is their rapid, uncontrolled division. Treatments tend to focus on things that will hurt rapidly dividing cells, which has the unfortunate side effect of hurting all of the other, normal cells in your body that rapidly divide, like hair and stomach lining.

What I’m trying to get at with this is that there is no universal “cure” for cancer sitting around waiting to be discovered. Cancer is really just a name for a whole group of things that can go wrong with the body, the end result being a bunch of rogue cells replicating and making trouble. Every type of cancer has its own set of potential causes and typical outcomes along with its own methods of prevention. Not smoking will help reduce your chances of getting lung or mouth cancer, while a vaccination against HPV can reduce your chances of getting cervical cancer. Stopping smoking will probably not, however, do much about your chances of getting prostate cancer.

Please, remember this idea the next time cancer comes up in a discussion. If you are interested in reading more about what cancer is and isn’t, I suggest starting with the Wikipedia article.