What are the importance of studying Mitosis towards cancer treatment?

October 8th, 2008 | Tags: , ,
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cancer treatments
kathy asked:


Can researches on Mitosis provide an idea on how to treat cancer?

  1. heshoots
    October 11th, 2008 at 21:44
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    Cancerous cells often have abnormalities (specific mutations) which interfere with the normal cell cycle. Often they don’t stop dividing as a normal cell would because of a mutation in one or more genes which are involved in regulating the cell cycle. Apoptosis is another process known as programmed cell death. Normal cells live for a time then are replaced by new ones when they die. Cancerous cells sometimes do not die but again continue to divide crowding out normal cells. Look up Cdk/cyclins, p53.

  2. Notyour B
    October 14th, 2008 at 18:27
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    Mitosis is a very important aspect of cancer research, because cancer cells divide pretty fast.

    For example, chemo drug will tend to block cancer cells in one stage of mitosis, causing them to die. Blocage to one stage in mitosis is an indication of how the chemo drugs work, which is not necessarily well known at the time of their discovery. And knowing how something works, it is much easier to make it work better.

    Another aspect of cell life which is very very important in cancer research is apoptosis, ie programmed cell death. This mechanism of protection of the body is often absent in cancer cells. Restoring this function might be a very good way to cure cancer.

  3. Char
    October 15th, 2008 at 06:39
    Reply | Quote | #3

    It could. Cancer is all about cell reproduction.
    Of course, there are people smarter than me working on it.

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