Death of a Tumor Essay -- Biology Cancer

Cell Background Animal cells are eukaryotic and have a very complex structure. A eukaryotic cell is composed of many membrane-enclosed organelles. Organelles are compartments that perform different functions inside the cell. An organelle called the nucleus contains the genetic material, or DNA, and is the most vital organelle of the cell because it is responsible for carrying the genes that make up the body. A cell's membrane is composed of two layers that regulate the flow of materials in and out of the cell. Along the membrane are several kinds of receptor proteins that detect foreign materials. A cell replicates by a process called mitosis. In this process the chromosomes pair up and when the cell divides and each cell is genetically identical. Any mistakes in this process can lead to cancer. If somewhere along the line, the normal regulation of mitosis is broken and the cell divides continuously and out of control. This is how tumors are created. There are many reasons for the mitotic cycle to break such as the loss of certain checkpoints, which make sure the cell is dividing normally. Without these checkpoints in the cycle of mitosis, the cell does not divide normally, and this usually leads to the growth of tumors. Tumor Prevention There are several ways to prevent cancer, but some of the time cancer is a genetic defect that cannot be prevented. Overexposure to sunlight or tanning salons may cause skin cancer. Clothing and sunscreen protects the skin from the sun and can decrease the chances of skin cancer. To decrease the risk of developing cancer, one should not smoke. Smoking increases the risk of developing cancer of the lung, mouth, throat, esophagus, panc... ...s showed that Raf-1 had indeed prevented angiogenesis from occurring by making apoptosis successful in destroying the tumor. TUNNEL had shown that the nearby dead blood vessels had self- destructed leaving behind signs of apoptosis in tumor cells. This supported what the scientists had confirmed that each blood vessel has the ability to support 50-100 tumor cells. When the blood vessel dies, so do the tumor cells, thus crumbling into a concentric ring. Resources & Links: [1]Cancer Research UK. Catrin Pritchard, Ed. University of Leicester. http://science.cancerresearchuk.org/research/loc/ leicester/leicester_univ/pritchardc/pritchardcover?version=1 Purves, William, Sadava, David, and H. Craig Heller, eds. The Science of Biology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, Inc., 2001. Signal Transduction. Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology.