In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer and predicted a cure in the near future. As of today there is no complete cure but many advances have been made due to the completion of the human genome sequence. Because of this advancement, scientists have learned cancer forms from a group of genes created by a certain combination of mutations. Since cancer isn’t produced by a single consistent defect, but a number of on and off switch combinations in our 33,000 genes, researchers have never succeeded in finding a complete cure all solution. Finally our understanding of this disease is making progress. Survival rates are slowly climbing with the advancements of technologies. The prediction is, in ten years, suffering and death due to cancer will be eliminated.
Here are the current treatments for cancer:
A current treatment for cancer involves chemotherapy. Ch
This simply turns off particular genes that produce damaging proteins. Human cells have built –in mechanisms to fight foreign invaders and regulate gene expression. By manipulating this it can be used to turn off the cancer causing genes. The technique has not produced any drugs but is used in laboratory animals in gene testing.
Here are some of the current “tools” for fighting cancer and developing new treatments:
There are about half a million human proteins out there. Scientists are currently cataloging each one’s effects and chemical reactions. Long before a tumor forms, cancer cells produce abnormal proteins. Biotech companies are searching for ways to produce micro arrays that will identify cancer proteins before a tumor grows so that a patient can be treated early on. This will also aid scientists in forming new drugs to inhibit certain proteins.
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