• Question: do you know the visual difference between normal cells and cancer cells?

    Asked by RandomPotato13 to Arthur on 10 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Hey there!

      This is a great question and one of my favourite questions.

      Cancer cells look the same as any other cell in our body from just looking at them. That’s why it’s so hard to treat. It’s normally only when you look at what’s going on inside the cell that there are differences.

      Cancer starts when our own cells loose control somehow (either through a mutation in the DNA or damage of some kind) and then divide and grow without stopping.

      Normal cells have checkpoints that stop the cell growing or splitting or making more DNA etc until they need to but cancers have damaged checkpoints so grow like crazy.

      The reason your white blood cells can’t attack cancer is because it looks basically the same as a normal cell. I have taken a few pictures of some of my cancer cells and normal cells i’m growing and upload it to my profile so you can have a look and see if you can spot the difference!

      (sorry I rambled so much in this answer it’s just a great question)

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