Friday, November 25, 2016
DNA Damage Radiation and Cancer
The article I read is titled "Study reveals how ionising radiation damages DNA and causes cancer." I chose this article because I am interested in the medical applications of biology. The study discussed in the article looked at ways doctors can determine which types of tumors are caused by radiation and plan care accordingly. There are two types of DNA damage caused by radiation deletions and balanced inversions. Deletions are small sections of DNA being cut out. A balanced inversion is where the DNA is cut into pieces and some of the pieces rotate and are connected in the wrong direction. High levels of radiation can overload the DNA repair mechanism in the cell and chop the DNA into pieces. I believe the next step for scientists should be to test whether tumors caused by radiation should be treated differently then tumors formed due to other causes. I find this interesting because it is a study that looks into the causes of cancer and opens up the possibility of specialized cancer treatment depending on the cause of the cancer.
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I think i read a similar article and i i found your post no less interesting because of how ionizing of DNA is effecting peoples DNA causing various bad mutations to occur. However im glad in a way that we now understand this more as i believe it will lead to a greater understanding of how cancer works and eventually may help us to cure it.
ReplyDelete-Jacob C
I like your opinions added to the end with what you think should come next in the research with cancer. I believe tumors created by radiation should be treated differently because they are so sensitive.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea about how a tumor is formed might be important to think about when considering how to treat it. The origin of diseases and damage to cells is fascinating and could probably provide valuable insights into how they might be best treated.
ReplyDelete-BG
This sounds like a dumb question and I haven't really ever thought about this or done research on it, but if radiation causes cancer why is cancer treated with radiation?
ReplyDelete-SN
after how many Deletion and balanced inversion will the dna repair system fix. how many until it starts to fall behind? such an interesting read! sb
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of radiation is causing cancer? I know cancer is caused by radiation but we use it to cure cancer so I'm curious. It was interesting to read about the DNA being cut up because of so much radiation, I had no idea that could happen.
ReplyDelete-B.N.K.