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Asked by brazilianpineapple to Daren, Simon, Phillip, Lynne on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by , , , , , , , .
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Simon Redfern answered on 16 Jun 2014:
Cancer is not a single disease, but takes many forms. Some types of cancer have already been tackled quite effectively, and I think that science will continue to make effective advances in treating cancer. In many cases, it seems that as life expectancy increases, so different cancers become more common, simply because people are living longer for them to develop. It is unlikely that we will ever cure “death”, in my opinion, so cancer and other diseases are a feature of life, to an extent, I’m afraid.
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Daren Fearon answered on 16 Jun 2014:
This is difficult as cancer isn’t a single disease, it is a term used for a group of diseases which are sometimes defined by their location or type. So it is unlikely that there will be a single cure for all the different types of cancer.
We have drugs that are very effective at killing cancer cells but these also kill any human cells which rapidly reproduce causing very severe side effects, so they are not very appealing. A lot of research now focuses on targeting specific proteins that are either over active or there is too much of them in the cancer cells so we can selectively kill cancer cells and leave the patient unharmed. Protein crystallography plays a key role in this process as it can help us design drugs which specifically target these proteins.
As cancer cells rapidly reproduce they develop mutations and become resistant to the drugs we have. So we then need to start over again and find new drugs. Scientists are also looking at how we can try and avoid this resistance from developing.
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Lynne Thomas answered on 16 Jun 2014:
We already have cures for some types of cancer but we will never stop people from dying from some form of the disease. A lot of it depends on how early the cancer is spotted and how aggressive it is so it is not just a simple matter of finding a cure. And as we overcome some illnesses, different ones will appear so we will have a constant challenge of finding new cures to new illnesses.
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anon answered on 16 Jun 2014:
Cancer is what happens when the DNA in your cells mutates and the cell “forgets” its instructions. All cells are programmed to regrow over time – that’s how your hair and skin grows. A cancerous cell just forgets when to stop growing and goes out of control. DNA damage is something that happens quite often. It’s not always bad but it is more likely to happen the longer you live. I think that although we might beat the cancers that are around today, new ones will start popping up when people live longer.
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Phillip Manning answered on 17 Jun 2014:
This is a tough one, as there are some cancers that have not even been discovered or named. It is one of these bucket medial terms that covers so many variants. I would hope that the most common forms are cured, but it is the rarer forms that will always be a problem. This said, there are new techniques and medicines that are available today, that we would never have dreamt of when I was a child…so I would say the future is bright.
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