Emma-CancerAngierQuestions

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 is an attorney and the wife of  the Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. Elizabeth Edwards first underwent treatment for breast cancer after the 2004 campaign in which her husband was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Mrs. Edwards is still alive and going through treatment on her cancer that spread from her breast to bone. - Tony Snow is Republican President George Bush's press secretary. Snow was diagnosed with colon cancer on February 25. 2007 and had his colon removed. Snow announced that he would be undergoing surgery the following Monday to remove and investigate an abdominal growth 2. What is a metastatic cancer cell? - Metastatic cancer cells spread from their original location and basically completly take over their new conquored region.

3. Why does the author call cancer cells barbarians and cannibals? -Because she is trying to personify them and show how intensely the metastatic cells take over and control their region. Barbarians and Cannibals have such a negative connotation and in the human society because they are uncivilized and have no mercy, which is equivalent to cancer cells.

4.What do we know about the events that transform a normal cell to a cancer cell? -Researchers have identified genetic mutations and chromosomal aberrations that make cells think they are being told to grow by growth hormones when they are not, that supressor signal is meant to keep cell division in check, and make the chromosomes and so allows cells to not die, when they actuallyshould be. c

5.Why is harder to study metastatic cancer cells? -Its hard to study metastatic cancer cells  because although scientists can study the initial stages of malignant transformation, in a controlled setting of cultured cells. Metastasis involves cells on the move and has to be studied in the body.

6. How many cells do primary tumors shed each day (in a rodent)? Yet how many metastatic tumors do these rodents have? -Primary tumors shed a million cells a day, yet the rodents have visible mestastatic ctumors that could be counted on one hand.

7.Describe two ways metastatic cells can travel through the body avoiding detection from our immune system. -Malignant tumors reinvent themselves as parasites. Others get a group of platelets and red blood cells to their surface to escort them through the blood stream undetected.

8.Where is the first site (oasis for the cancer cell) that metastasis generally occurs? Why? Why is it an oasis? (What is an oasis?) -An oases could be wound sites to which the chaperone platelets handily stick, allowing the cancer cells which they have carried to gain their first toehold in unmarked territory and to begin feeding on bountiful supply of growth hormones and factors with which wound sites typically hold

9. What is a dormant micrometastasis? Why are they relevant to human health? -Dormant micrometastasis is when the maignant cells die. For the most part patients can have millions of these cells without suffering any consequences. Only when the cells adapt to their new surroundings and interact with their neighbors enough to exploit them can they become active again. This leads into why different types of primary tumors tend to metastasize to their “preferred” organ.

10.What evidence do we have that metastasis occurs in organs that are similar to the organ of the primary tumor? Give two examples. -As cells learn skills from their own tissue or organ and these skills each are in some way related to another part of the body, which in the case of cancer would encourage that cell to spread to another area that shares the same skills. For example breast tumors 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 uncontrolled dissolution of calcium-rich bone. Malignant melanoma is easily spread to the brain, mainly because neural tissue and the melanocytes that give rise to melanoma both arise from the same class of cells during gestation.