• Question: what causes cancer cells multiply and how can you stop this or prospone it.

    Asked by electroleft to Shane on 13 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Shane Pennington-Cooper

      Shane Pennington-Cooper answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Electroleft,

      Good question

      At the end of all our chromosomes (tightly coiled length of DNA) we have little ‘antennaes’ called telomeres, when a cell is born such as a baby the telomeres are very long in length, as the cell ages the telomeres shorten, it is the instance of when the telomeres get below a certain length that the cell either dies (normally) or it decides to switch on a enzyme called telomerase, this enzyme causes the telomeres to lengthen allowing the cell to multiply , it is this half dead multiplying cell which causes the cancer to spread. To stop this we would have to create an enzyme inhibitor which stops the telomerase which causes the cell to relive.

      Think of a telomere as a image on paper, when you photocopy the image it is ok quality, when you photocopy the photocopy it gets more and more degraded, with this degraded piece of paper you can either throw it in the recycling bin (remember to recycle) or rejuvenate the paper using chemicals.

      This is the reason why Dolly the cloned sheep died so young.

      Hope this answers your question.

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