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Asked by hannahbee123 to Madgie on 12 Nov 2013.
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Marlene Lorgen answered on 12 Nov 2013:
This is a really interesting question, but I am afriad I do not know much about cancer science. If you ask the same question to Vicky she should be able to help you 🙂
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Comments
Vicky commented on :
Hi Hannah,
Good question! I posted about this before – here is my answer. I hope it helps you:
Hello!
That is a good question. For me, the reason why I became a cancer research scientist is quite unusual. When I was eight years old, I had leukaemia, which is a cancer of the blood. I had always been interested in science, even before then – but being on the hospital ward and having lots of treatment and operations really focused me on the science behind cancer. I was very inquisitive and I asked the doctors and nurses lots of questions about why I had cancer, and how the drugs were helping get rid of it. After that when I went back to school – I really liked biology, especially the bits where we looked at humans, genetics and diseases. I decided to study biomedical sciences at university and then decided I wanted to do a PhD, and given my personal experience – PhD research into leukaemia and what causes it, was a really interesting topic for me.
Vicky commented on :
Whoops! Wrong answer!
Here is the answer which relates to your question:
Hello Hannah,
Great question! The best short answer is; yes, but only sometimes. Inherited diseases are caused by problems in parts of DNA called genes – and one of the ways that scientists are trying to treat people with these diseases, is by ‘fixing’ the broken gene with something called ‘gene therapy’.
One of the ways in which gene therapy works is by putting a normal copy of the gene in to make up for the broken one. To do this, they have to put this normal DNA into the DNA that is already there in the cells. Your DNA is very very long and complicated – it has around 25,000 genes (the important bits), and the problem with gene therapy at the moment is that scientists can’t really control where in the DNA they put their ‘normal DNA’ it’s random- if they happen to put it in the middle of a different important gene that has nothing to do with the original inherited disease, that gene can then become broken too – and cancer can develop. This has unfortunately happened before, where children were treated with gene therapy for a serious inherited disease and then developed a cancer of the blood called leukaemia. You can read more about this here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7149463.stm scientists are however trying to work out these problems, and hopefully we will be able to use it in the future without the risk of giving people cancer. I hope that answers your question! Please do ask more questions if you would like to know more.