The researchers here hope that their new found information will help for future chemotherapy treatments. Hopefully, they will be able to tell why these cells essentially resist these treatments. Also, maybe a new treatment method for cancer can be administered that will be able to destroy these mutant cells. Overall, I think that this new found information will be very helpful in trying to find a way to better treat those affected by cancer.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Mutant Cells
Researchers at USC have found new cells called "checkpoint mutants" that may prove to be more detrimental for cancer patients. Chemotherapy treatment stops the replication process for a majority of cancer cells. However, these "checkpoint mutants" continue to unwind DNA strands and create abnormal ones that are similar to cancer cells. This discovery was found after their researchers did some testing on yeast cells. In their test, the scientists used chemotherapy on fission yeast cells while they were going through the DNA replication process. The chemotherapy starves the cells of nucleotides needed to make new DNA strands. The mutant cells, however, tried to replicate even though they were lacking this essential component. "These mutant cells keep trying to replicate their DNA, unwinding the strands, until the DNA strands reach a "collapse point" where they break-arguably the worst kind of damage that can be done to a cell."
The researchers here hope that their new found information will help for future chemotherapy treatments. Hopefully, they will be able to tell why these cells essentially resist these treatments. Also, maybe a new treatment method for cancer can be administered that will be able to destroy these mutant cells. Overall, I think that this new found information will be very helpful in trying to find a way to better treat those affected by cancer.
The researchers here hope that their new found information will help for future chemotherapy treatments. Hopefully, they will be able to tell why these cells essentially resist these treatments. Also, maybe a new treatment method for cancer can be administered that will be able to destroy these mutant cells. Overall, I think that this new found information will be very helpful in trying to find a way to better treat those affected by cancer.
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I feel like this new discovery is both a blessing and a curse-while it's great that scientists are able to uncover a whole new obstacle that affects so many who are afflicted with cancer. At the same time, chemotherapy is shown to be ineffective against this mutant gene. With this being a new discovery, I would like to know whether this mutant gene is something that has recently been occurring among cancer patients or if it is something that was always there but was undetected.
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