• Question: Do you know anyone who is actively researching the cure for a cancer?

    Asked by Owen the gym lad to Cristiane, Nicki, Nikolai, Richard, Samuel on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Nikolai Adamski

      Nikolai Adamski answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I don’t know any researchers doing that personally.
      But I know that there are a LOT of resaerchers working on curing cancer. The biggest problem with cancer is (as you identified correctly) is that there are so many different types of cancers. And in addition, different people will react in a different way to a cure for a particualr cancer.
      But cancer researchers are on the right track. You might have seen some ads on the telly that say that nowadays on average 50% of people who get cancer survive it. This number is different for different types of cancer, e.g. the survival rate for pancreatic cancer is probably below 50% while survival rate for skin cancers is way above 50%. I don’t know any exact numbers though, so don’t quote me on that.

    • Photo: Samuel Ellis

      Samuel Ellis answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I do actually. The institute I work at has strong links with a nearby university, and lots of scientists there work on cancer. One area they are looking at is called angiogenesis, which is when the body makes new blood vessels. Because cancer cells are very greedy for all the nutrients in blood to help them grow faster, they often make a load of new blood vessels around the tumour to improve supply. The scientists I know are studying ways of stopping this process, which would ‘starve’ the cancer and stop it growing any bigger.

      I also know scientists who developed ‘Super broccoli’, which you can now buy in shops. It has really high levels of a nutrient in it which is thought to reduce the risk of both cancer and heart disease

    • Photo: Cristiane Calixto

      Cristiane Calixto answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      No, I don’t. But I know a lot of people working on the cure for other diseases.

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