Contrary to previous belief, scientists are now discovering that cancers may be classified as a different parasitic species living in an organism. They are comparable to a bacterial level organism. Essentially, they grow when, where, and how they want instead of following the host organisms orders. That would qualify them as a different species. However, they are slightly different because their genome, unlike most other organisms, is constantly changing, so a new species is made with every individual cancer patient. Also, scientists previously believed that cancer was caused by random gene mutations. Now, however, many molecular biologists believe that cancer is caused by multiple chromosomal disorders.
This is an important step in cancer research. Cancer is a very successful parasite because of its resiliency. It can change the amount of chromosomes it has many times, but can still live as long as genes responsible for asexual reproduction are still in place. They are primitive, which works to their advantage, as imperfect mitosis allows them to constantly evolve. This makes finding a universal cancer drug that does not also kill the host almost impossible.
1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110726163519.htm
Insightful post. Cancer is probably one of the scariest words in the English language. These new discoveries suggest that it is even tougher than originally thought. For now, the only thing we can do is to research, find out as much as we can, and conduct more experiments like the studies in this article.
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