Hey connor10 this has been a popular question and is a very good one!
Cancer cells are normal cells with a couple of differences. The differences aren’t always the same ones either. They’re normally called mutations. What happens is something in one of our normal cells causes a bit of DNA changes and it causes a process in the cell to not work properly. Things like sunlight damage can cause the DNA to get damaged and cause problems for the proteins the DNA makes.
This could either mean the cell now doesn’t know how to die, or that it multiplies faster than other cells around it. This is start of a tumour, and it grows and grows because it no longer knows how to stop as it should. Cells from the cancer can then break off and spread around the body and start new tumours there too. This is why it can be so hard to treat cancer, because basically they are the same cells as ours, with only a couple of differences, and if you harm cancer cells you can harm your own normal cells!
connor10 cancer cells are not exactly normal cells. They are cells which used to be normal! They are cells that become too damaged (and have DNA mistakes) – maybe for example because of the dangerous chemicals in cigarettes – and have not been removed or fixed.
Hi Connor10! I’m not a cancer scientist but this is what I understand about cancer cells.
Really cancer cells start of from normal cells in the body. As Sam mentioned, sometimes all it take is a little mutation in the DNA and the normal cell turns nasty! A bit like the Hulk!!! These mutations can be caused by environmental triggers like too much sun or smocking!
To our body, this cancer cell still appears normal! The mutation really is small and our immune system doesn’t recognise this nasty cell. The immune system is a group of cells called white blood cells that are there to destroy nasty “foreign” material in the body such as bacteria, viruses, and abnormal cells. Cancer cells are abnormal and so very sneaky! They somehow manage to sneak past the white blood cells, without triggering the immune system to start fighting it. So this sadly means that now this cancer cell continues to divide and make more nasty cancer cells which eventually form tumours!
So really a cancer cell is a good cell gone bad! :S
Hey connor10 this has been a popular question and is a very good one!
Cancer cells are normal cells with a couple of differences. The differences aren’t always the same ones either. They’re normally called mutations. What happens is something in one of our normal cells causes a bit of DNA changes and it causes a process in the cell to not work properly. Things like sunlight damage can cause the DNA to get damaged and cause problems for the proteins the DNA makes.
This could either mean the cell now doesn’t know how to die, or that it multiplies faster than other cells around it. This is start of a tumour, and it grows and grows because it no longer knows how to stop as it should. Cells from the cancer can then break off and spread around the body and start new tumours there too. This is why it can be so hard to treat cancer, because basically they are the same cells as ours, with only a couple of differences, and if you harm cancer cells you can harm your own normal cells!
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connor10 cancer cells are not exactly normal cells. They are cells which used to be normal! They are cells that become too damaged (and have DNA mistakes) – maybe for example because of the dangerous chemicals in cigarettes – and have not been removed or fixed.
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Hi Connor10! I’m not a cancer scientist but this is what I understand about cancer cells.
Really cancer cells start of from normal cells in the body. As Sam mentioned, sometimes all it take is a little mutation in the DNA and the normal cell turns nasty! A bit like the Hulk!!! These mutations can be caused by environmental triggers like too much sun or smocking!
To our body, this cancer cell still appears normal! The mutation really is small and our immune system doesn’t recognise this nasty cell. The immune system is a group of cells called white blood cells that are there to destroy nasty “foreign” material in the body such as bacteria, viruses, and abnormal cells. Cancer cells are abnormal and so very sneaky! They somehow manage to sneak past the white blood cells, without triggering the immune system to start fighting it. So this sadly means that now this cancer cell continues to divide and make more nasty cancer cells which eventually form tumours!
So really a cancer cell is a good cell gone bad! :S
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