• Question: where do you cancer cells from?

    Asked by girlygeek1 to Clare, Mariana, Robert, Susanne on 21 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hallo Girlygeek

      Cancer cells are your body’s own cells.

      Something goes wrong while they’re dividing, so their genes get damaged, in particular the genes that control how fast cells grow and when they stop growing. Because the controls are damaged they grow and grow and grow without stopping.

      What damages genes? All sorts of things, but the worst are cigarette smoke and asbestos. The UV in sunlight is also good at damaging genes, which is why sunscreen is important.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Cancer comes from your own cells as Robert says, and can happen when DNA is damaged. As well as toxic chemicals and UV, some viruses can also cause cancer. Like the human papilloma virus (HPV) – you may have heard of the HPV vaccine? HPV can turn cells into cancerous cells because the virus infects cells and can interfere with human proteins called tumour suppressor proteins who normally help to prevent cancer.

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hi Girlygeek,

      Yes, cancer cells are your own cells, which have become weird at some point. This is one of the reasons which makes it so hard to find good therapies: The cancer cells look too much like the rest of your body’s cells. It is therefore hard to find treatments which kill cancer cells but not affect the normal cells in your body. And because they are your own cells, your own defense mechanism, the immune system, also does not get rid of them.

    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hello Girlygeek,
      As the scientists said before, they are just our own cells that got some mistakes in the DNA and then keep on dividing when they shouldn’t. Usually the cell tries to correct those mistakes but sometimes is not possible. In those cases cells can become cancer cells. But not always. It depends, for instance, on where those mistakes happen.

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