Why cancer is so hard to beat: Is it evolution?
Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - 11:20
in Biology & Nature
A new study may have identified one of the key reasons why cancer is so hard to beat; it’s an evolutionary mechanism to protect the survival of life on Earth. As authors explain, our bodies are usually very efficient at identifying and repairing damaged DNA in our cells though a series of ‘checkpoints.’ When the damage cannot be repaired, the cell usually dies in a process called apoptosis. But when that doesn’t happen, cancer can result as a last-ditch ‘checkpoint’ to remove defective cells, the mutations that caused the damage and their DNA from the gene pool.