• Question: why have people not figured out the cure for cancer

    Asked by push490dye on 17 Jul 2023.
    • Photo: Bruno Silvester Lopes

      Bruno Silvester Lopes answered on 17 Jul 2023:

      Cancer is a complex disease and it is not a single disease. Cancers can be of several types and there are different stages as well. There are approx 200 types of cancers. The whole purpose of cancer cells is to stay alive and multiply an this process allows them to cause the disease, besides that there are different drugs used to treat different cancers and some of the cells can become powerful and fight off these drugs as a result the drugs become ineffective. Although it is very common knowledge that gene/DNA changes can cause cancers but did you know that viruses such as HPV can cause cervical cancer and Helicobacter pylori (the bacterium which I study) is the only known bacterium in the world that causes stomach cancer!

    • Photo: Kip Heath

      Kip Heath answered on 21 Jul 2023:

      As Bruno says, cancer is lots and lots of different diseases so we will probably (never say never) find one cure for all cancers. But we make progress every year.

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