Biology Forum › Cell Biology › Immortality == Cancer?
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- September 10, 2011 at 11:47 am #15361
sfxworksParticipantI’m wondering…
Why are people looking to kill cancer cells? Yes they are bad because they kill you but. . . Isn’t the reason only because they are uncontrollable? I was honestly wondering why biologist don’t take a different approach. I was looking into HeLa cells and how they are immortal. Feed them, they live on. They don’t "age" at all and they never reach a hayflick limit. I mean, wouldn’t humanity be interested in not seeing them self and their loved ones die?
I’m limited in my knowledge in biology (don’t even know if this is entirely possible) but I can think of a few ways to approach this. For instance, teach our immune system to detect growth and only attack the cancer cells if they are "growing out of bounds". Otherwise, let them multiply.
If not that, then find out what makes them able to be immortal. I think it had something to do with the way they replicate. They don’t lose bits of rna when they replicate (or something).
Still, (I think) theirs the issue of the garbage our cells store that they cant get rid of over the years.I was also theorizing that this might be a form of a human evolution. Since radiation can cause mutation in dna markup and just about everything that has to do with radiation causes cancer. (Actually, just about everything.)
PS Hi I am new.
I’m 18 and getting ready for college. I plan to do 1 thing. Make this world the best it can be. So I’m going to need all the time in the world (hence the immortality aspect) as well as safety and assurance (stability in our government). I’m either going to major (first) in Biology or Politics. Worried about if our government (I’m from the US btw) supports research enough and if they wouldn’t take control of such research. - September 10, 2011 at 7:25 pm #106271Adz795Participant
=)
What you say seems like fantasy to me.
Your question is innocent. But, let me tell you such a thing would most likely be impossible. We cannot make all our cells cancerous just because we may fancy immortality.Anyway, nice thought!
- September 10, 2011 at 8:05 pm #106272sfxworksParticipant
I mean, some biologist are already making a lot of progress on this. There was a huge review about it on natgeo. I consider it possible…but I usually go for the impossible 😀 + im not a biologist (yet).
Maybe mimic the specific function of a cancer cell vs controlling the cancer cells themselves?
- September 11, 2011 at 6:48 am #106275aptitudeParticipant
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." – Don Knuth 🙂
- September 11, 2011 at 12:57 pm #106283canalonParticipant
You should also consider that cancer cells are not only immortal, they are also poorly diffentiated. Which means that in the community that is your body, they are just using resources without working for the community that is the body. And since a massive blob of immortal cells would not be able to survive as an organism is more than just a juxtaposition of cells, there is a non trivial problem in the cancer as a way to immortality.
- September 12, 2011 at 1:00 am #106298sfxworksParticipantquote canalon:You should also consider that cancer cells are not only immortal, they are also poorly diffentiated. Which means that in the community that is your body, they are just using resources without working for the community that is the body. And since a massive blob of immortal cells would not be able to survive as an organism is more than just a juxtaposition of cells, there is a non trivial problem in the cancer as a way to immortality.
Oh. Never thought of that. So their immortal freeloaders?
Still, what if we took their immortality aspect and applied it to our own hard working cells?
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