• Question: Do you think that there will be a cure to cancer? And if so when? And if not, why?

    Asked by anon-342505 on 21 Nov 2022.
    • Photo: Matthew Swift

      Matthew Swift answered on 21 Nov 2022:

      Cancer is an extremely complex set of diseases. There are over 200 cell types in the body and each of these can become cancerous. Then within these 200 there are thousands of sub-types and different forms of tissue specific tumours and then within these sub-types there are millions of individual mutations and risk factors many of which are specific to individual genetics.

      So we probably won’t find a “cure” for cancer as a whole, but we will find improving treatments for individuals sub-types and mutations moving forward.

      Hope that helps 🙂

    • Photo: Sharon Madzorera

      Sharon Madzorera answered on 22 Nov 2022:

      I think science and technology have come very far in the last couple of decades, I am optimistic that cancer will be beaten. It may take longer than we hope for but it will happen.

    • Photo: Charlene Kay

      Charlene Kay answered on 22 Nov 2022:

      Good question. It is possible but unlikely to find one cure that would cure all cancers. However I think there could be a situation where a technique is discovered that can be utilised in a cancer-specific way. Biologically cancers are so different – they have different genetic mutations, different mechanisms of growth and require tailored treatment that targets specific biological characteristics for that cancer. You never know though – there is an excitement to working in research in that you do sometimes feel the next big discovery is just around the corner.

    • Photo: Charli Corcoran

      Charli Corcoran answered on 29 Nov 2022:

      That’s a difficult question to answer as cancer includes so many different types. There’s so many people doing amazing work on lots of different cancers that while I don’t think we will get 1 cure for all cancers, I’m very hopeful that we will have better treatments than we do now in the next few decades.

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