• Question: Do you think that you will be able to cure cancer

    Asked by tazaroney to Arthur, Tora, David, Daniel, Clare on 7 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Bialy, Marjorielukejaibrooks, 352gdna36, 358gdna49, cookie monster, Orla Graham :-), ccm135.
    • Photo: Arthur Dyer

      Arthur Dyer answered on 7 Nov 2014:

      Wow! That’s a big question.

      Yeah I honestly do think that cancer will be cured at some point but it’s definitely not an easy task and the answer won’t be one pill that will cure every type of cancer but personalised treatment depending on what mutations you have.

      There’s already a few great treatments out there (like herceptin for breast cancer which works amazingly well) but they only work on a few cancers.

      Our treatment (giving someone a virus that will only kill cancer cells) is a pretty awesome treatment and we’re only just starting to put it into humans. One of the first women who got the treatment was a woman who had chem0 and radiotherapy and it didn’t work but we gave her a load of trained measles virus and she has been alive for 4 years now.

      It’s a cool idea because the virus will travel all around the body and find even the little bits of cancer that have travelled over the body so it should work really well but we have a way to go before we can use it on all cancers.

      I’ve seen some really exciting work by other people too and we’re getting better and better at treating cancer. There’s a bunch of cool treatments that are so close to being ready to use.

      Are there any particular cures or types of cancer you’re interested in?

    • Photo: Daniel Parsons

      Daniel Parsons answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Great question.
      I think that eventually we will find a cure for cancer. The problem is that it is really tough challenge that we are only just beginning to understand. Using individual targeted medicine – medicine designed for an individual’s DNA, which seeks and destroys cancer cells wherever they are hiding, will be the way that it is done in the end I think….but that is still some way off.

    • Photo: Clare Harding

      Clare Harding answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      Some types of cancer definitely, we can already cure some people but the trouble is the more we find, the more we realise that cancer is very very complicated and even in one person, there can be many different types of cancer cells which respond to different drugs.

      So my answer is yes, sometimes!

    • Photo: Tora Smulders-Srinivasan

      Tora Smulders-Srinivasan answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      I think we might be able to stop caner in the future, but that’s quite a long way away.

      & I wouldn’t be doing it as I don’t work on cancer! 🙂

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