Cancer Science 101
What is the term for uncontrolled cell growth?
What is cancer?
These white blood cells are the body’s first responders to infection or injury.
What are neutrophils?
Administration of the HPV vaccine before becoming sexually active is considered this level of prevention.
What is primary prevention?
Segments of DNA that code for proteins are called what?
What are genes?
This treatment uses drugs to kill or slow the growth of cancer cells.
What is chemotherapy?
These changes in DNA can lead to cancer.
What are mutations?
These proteins, produced by the immune system, bind to specific antigens to help fight disease.
What are antibodies?
Using a Pap smear to detect abnormal cervical cells before they become cancer is an example of this prevention level.
What is secondary prevention?
A mutation that increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer occurs in this famous gene.
What is BRCA1/2?
This type of therapy trains the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells.
What is immunotherapy?
This process is when cancer cells spread from one part of the body to another.
What is metastasis?
This type of immune cell can “remember” past infections and respond faster the next time.
What are memory cells?
This doctor is known as the “Father of Modern Epidemiology” for tracing a cholera outbreak to a water pump.
Who is John Snow?
These ends of chromosomes get shorter with each cell division and can contribute to aging and cancer.
What are telomeres?
This therapy uses high-energy rays or particles to destroy cancer cells.
What is radiation therapy?
Name the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for making proteins.
What is DNA?
This process removes damaged or unneeded cells in an organized way, sometimes called “programmed cell death.”
What is apoptosis?
Epidemiologists studying lung cancer found much higher rates in smokers than in non-smokers. This type of evidence suggests a causal link but reminds us of this key principle in research design.
What is "correlation does not imply causation"?
This process makes an RNA copy from a DNA sequence.
What is transcription?
A treatment tested in people to determine safety and effectiveness is called a what?
What is a clinical trial?
This surgeon, who advocated for public health measures to reduce cancer risk, founded the first dedicated cancer research center in the U.S. in 1898.
Who is Dr. Roswell Park?
This branch of the immune system is the body’s first responder, reacting quickly to infections and abnormal cells — including some cancer cells — but without needing to “remember” past threats.
What is the innate immune system?
Studying how inherited variations in DNA influence a person’s risk for developing certain cancers is called what branch of epidemiology?
What is genetic epidemiology?
These mice have a specific gene removed to study the effects of losing that gene, compared to normal mice that still have it.
What are knockout mice?
This type of therapy delivers drugs directly to cancer cells by targeting molecules specific to those cells.
What is targeted therapy?