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Asked by to Claire, Ian, Sergey, Vicky, Zena on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Sergey Lamzin answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Your cells need to multiply in order to grow and replace dead ones.
When your cells multiply they have to copy your genetic material.
Sadly this process is not error-free. If very specific errors happen (like in the part that tells the cell to stop multiplying) then it may become a cancer cell.
Other reasons may be from random radiation which can also cause this kind of problems.
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Zena Hira answered on 19 Jun 2014:
There are things that are told to be causing cancer, of course it takes a lot of time and exposure to them to cause you anything. The other way – the out of no where- is that you are predisposed to cancer due to your DNA and genes. Therefore they start multiplying and get out of control
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Ian Simpson answered on 26 Jun 2014:
There are lots of environmental and genetic factors that can lead to a person developing cancer. In a person with no family history of cancer there may still be a pre-disposing genetic characteristic that has yet to reveal itself. It is also possible that novel mutations in the person have led to development of cancer.
In cancer it is often the case that two copies of a “tumour suppressor gene” have to be lost to result in cancer. These genes play a role in controlling the cell-cycle preventing cells from dividing out of control. Most heritable cancers (where there is a family history) occur when the person has already inherited one mutant (or deleted) copy of such a TSG. It only then takes one more hit for complete loss of that gene function resulting in cancer. This is called Loss Of Heterozygosity (LOH) and was proposed as a cancer mechanism by a scientist called Knudson as the Knudson 2-hit hypothesis. It holds true for a lot of cancers, but there are lots of other mechanisms that are involved. There is still relatively little known about the mechanisms of LOH and it is a very active field of research.
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