cancer+article-+rebecca


 * 1. The article begins by mentioning two important people with cancer. Who is Elizabeth Edwards? Who is Tony Snow? (Include their politcal party, job, and current health status-this article was written in April-your answer should have more than what you can find in the article)**- Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow have neem in teh public eye by a brutal disease that itself flouts the bod't partitions and ruptures the compartmentalized calm of which we all are built. Elizabeth is a 57 year old, and is teh wife if presidential canidate John Edwards. Tony is a 51 year old man and is the press secretary to President Bush. Both of them have cancers that have returned and metastasized. Elizabeth's cancer moved from her breast to her bone, and Tony's cancer moved from his colon to his liver. They both are getting treated for their cancer. Elizabeth is also an attorny. On November 3, 2004, the day Kerry and Edwards conceded defeat in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer. She later revealed that she discovered a lump in her breast while on a campaign stop in Kenosha, Wisconsin a few weeks earlier, in the midst of the campaign. Edwards was treated and has continued to remain an activist for women's health and cancer patients. Tony Snow, having suffered for years from ulcerative colitis, was at an increased risk for colon cancer.[4] In February 2005, this risk proved real, as he developed cancer in his colon.[5] After having his colon removed, Snow announced that he would be undergoing surgery the following Monday to remove and investigate an abdominal growth. On March 27, the White House announced that the growth was cancerous and had metastasized.


 * What is a metastatic cancer cell?** metastatic cancer remains one of the grimmest conditions a person can face. Patients rarely die from the effects of a primary tumor; 90 percent of deaths from cancer are the result of metastases, of malignant cellular outposts proliferating far from the neoplastic mass that spawned them.


 * Why does the author call cancer cells barbarians and cannibals?** They are barbarians, the colonist cells, co-opting all nutrients in their adopted organ and starving their normal neighbors of air, sugar and salts, and blocking traffic and clogging conduits, and finally, when their greed exceeds their easy grab, tearing open surrounding cells and feasting like cannibals on the meat of their fellows.


 * What do we know about the events that transform a normal cell to a cancer cell?** Biologists know quite a bit about the steps that transform a normal cell into a cancer cell, a cell that lawlessly divides and gives rise to a primary tumor. They have identified genetic mutations and chromosomal aberrations that prompt cells to think they are being stimulated by growth hormones when they are not, that stifle safety signals meant to keep cell division in check, and that shore up the tips of chromosomes and so immortalize cells that otherwise would be slated to die.The body’s transportation networks are fraught with danger to unlicensed migrants, and not just from the body’s defense system. Because most tumor cells lack the streamlined form of the blood and immune cells that are designed for cross-body trafficking, shear forces in the smaller vessels may rip the intruders apart.


 * Why is harder to study metastatic cancer cells?** cells ate moving and living in the body and it is hard to see what is going on with the cells because of all of the bodies fuctions.


 * How many cells do primary tumors shed each day (in a rodent)?** Yet how many metastatic tumors do these rodents have?- Most appear to either die or lapse into dormancy. Patients may harbor thousand or millions of thses dormant micrometastases without suffering a fatal relapse of the disease.

**Describe two ways metastatic cells can travel through the body avoiding detection from our immune system.**-, malignant cells must reinvent themselves as parasites. A few manage to slim down to almost bacterial dimensions by pinching off unnecessary hanks of their cytoplasm. Others take on what Dr. Weinberg calls “hitchhikers,” attracting an entourage of platelets and red blood cells to their surface “to escort them through the rapids into safe pools within tissues.”


 * Where is the first site (oasis for the cancer cell) that metastasis generally occurs? Why? Why is it an oasis? (What is an oasis?)** It first occurs in the mouth.


 * What is a dormant micrometastasis?** Why are they relevant to human health? Most appear to either die or lapse into dormancy. Patients may harbor thousands or millions of these dormant micrometastases without suffering a fatal relapse of the disease. Evidence suggests that micrometastases will not attain macro dimensions unless, among other things, they adapt to their new surroundings and interact with their neighbors enough to exploit them. This helps explain why different types of primary tumors tend to metastasize to their “preferred” organ: cells learn a skill set from their tissue of origin, and some lessons are more easily applied to one novel setting than to another.


 * What evidence do we have that metastasis occurs in organs that are similar to the organ of the primary tumor?** Give two examples. Breast tumors, for example, are known to metastasize to bone tissue, where the invasive cells perversely take advantage of their ability to gather calcium ions for breast milk and apply it to the rampant dissolution of calcium-rich bone. Malignant melanoma spreads readily to the brain, presumably because neural tissue and the melanocytes that give rise to melanoma both arise from the same class of cells during gestation.

sources: Angier article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Edwards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Snow