Cancer Extra Credit - Grade: A PDF

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Biology Extra Credit Professor Hansen October 22nd, 2017 During the "Devil Tumors" podcast, the people discussed tumors on Tasmanian Devils found by David Quammen. He traveled to Tasmania for many years to take pictures of these creatures to only find after a couple of years, a couple of devils that had growths on their faces. Because of these growths, sometimes 90% of Devils were gone.

This doctor started to look at

these devils and find that all the tumors were the exact same. They were all genetically identical. The tumor was leaping from Devil to Devil. Cancer is cells replicating that are fighting against one another until it finally kills the person with cancer. The cells have to go through many mutations which is making cancer more cancerous explaining why it is so hard to cure. Tasmanian Devils are really rough with one another so a Devil with a tumor on its face will bit another tumor free Devil, sharing and shedding the tumor cells giving the Devil a tumor. This is a tumor that may never die. During the podcast, "Henrietta's Tumor," it was discussed that a woman named Henrietta Lacks found out on her own that she had cancer. The doctor never saw anything like it, so they took a sample and found out that it was cervical cancer. Doctors tried for a long time to try and grow cancer cells out of the body but they would all die and no one knew exactly why. The cervical cancer that was from Henrietta Lacks didn’t die when the doctors tried to grow them. They kept growing and getting stronger. They found a way of making Polio by putting it into Guy's creation, Hela, which replicated Polio. These test help find a way to stop the virus until they started putting other virus into Hela to see what would happen and see how to prevent many

diseases. They found out that Hela cells can float on dust particles which eventually lead to Hela taking over to all other things. Henrietta Lacks was in so much pain towards the end of her life, it is excruciating to listen to, but her cells were still alive and were being injected with so many other things. Henrietta's daughter who never got to really know her mom, finally met her mother's cells before she passed away from a heart attack....