My Breakthrough
Understanding tumour formation
A cell with errors in its genes may divide uncontrollably to form a large mass of cells - a tumour. Usually, when cells behave abnormally they die. We are trying to understand why this doesn't happen with cancer cells.
When things go wrong in cells, the cell can set up a 'suicide' programme causing its death; this process is called apoptosis. Apoptosis eliminates abnormal cells from the body, as a quality control mechanism thus preventing their further growth. However, cancer cells seem to be resistant to this process.
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