Cancer Timeline and Characteristics

Cancers share the following characteristics (page 70)

• Hyperplasia

• Dedifferentiation

• Invasiveness

• Angiogenesis

• Metastasis

Hyperplasia

• Telomere region =ends of chromosomes

• Telomerase = enzyme that cancer activates, when activated it lengthens telomere region

Dedifferentiation

• Loss of normal functioning so…DEdifferentiated

Invasiveness

• Breaking away from basement membrane

• What type of cells are attached to a basement membrane

Angiogenesis

Metastasis

Genetic Mutations that Cause Cancer

• Oncogenes– Normally inactive

unless preparing for mitosis

– Cell stays in G1 as long as oncogene is inactive

– A mutation causes this gene to be ACTIVE therefore…

• Tumor Suppressor Gene– Normally active to keep

the cell from doing mitosis

– Cell stays in G1 as long as the TS Gene is active

– A mutation causes the gene to be inactive therefore…

Genetic Mutations

• Oncogenes • Tumor Surpressor Genes

3000 BC

• Earliest written description of cancer

• 2500-1600 B.C. – describes surgery, pharmacology, mechanical and magical treatments

500 B.C.• Greek• Hippocrates (Greek philosopher) lifted

medicine out of realms of magic• Both performed diagnosis and treatment• 4 corresponding fluids that governed

health:– Blood– Phlegm– Yellow bile– Black bile

1 A.D.

• Galen (Roman empire) – “physician for a millennium”

• Served as physician to gladiators – learned a lot and wrote a lot

500 AD

• Hospitals – an outstanding Arab contribution to medicine

• Monastic hospitals built for wounded crusaders

• Best hospitals of the Middle Ages:– Baghdad– Damascus– Cairo

11th Century

• Universities and Medical Schools – a legacy of the Middle Ages– Bologna, Paris,

Montpellier and Oxford

1000-1400 A.D.

• Fall of Rome – Constantinople becomes intellectual storehouse of civilization

• Europe emphasizes faith in healing

• Universities still rooted in Galen

1500

• Research and Renaissance

• The Art of Anatomy • Medicine based

observation and analysis

• Cancer still considered incurable (black bile theory hard to die)

1600s

• Experimental medicine begins

• Surgeries attempted, statistics calculated, systems identified, knowledge published and shared

• CANCER – not caused by black bile!

• Italian physician Gaspare Aselli suggests abnormalities with lymphatic system

1655

• Microscope invented by Leeunhoek

• Robert Hooke– CELLS!

1700

• Nuns, Chimney sweeps and Snuff –takers– First to observe environmental conditions and

health risks

• Cancer thought to be local disease• Experimental Oncology begins with French

physician Jean Astruc and chemist Bernard Peyrille

• John Hunter – surgical removal of cancer

1800

• Morbid anatomy allows for thorough documentation of organs infected with cancer

• Cancer cells observed in microscope

• Ether and use of disinfectants makes surgeries prevail with lower mortality rates

Early 1900s

• Radiotherapy used to treat cancer – radium

• Genetic cause of cancer proposed

• Viral cause of cancer proposed

• Animal experimentations to find cancer wonder drug

• 1930 – The National Cancer Institute is founded, educating public

1930-1950

• Chemotherapy and radiation providing hope

• Early diagnosis is key

• Shocking discovery – smoking may cause cancer!

1955

• Watson and Crick – need I say more?

• Molecular medicine born

• Radiation and chemo progressing

1960

Silent Spring – Rachel Carson

• Environmental links to cancer

• Viral oncology

• Warning label on cigarettes

1970’s

• Reverse transcriptase – alters cancer research by making genetic engineering possible

• Carcinogens and DNA focus

1975

• First Oncogene discovered

• DNA sequencing

1980’s

• Cancer Immunology – manipulating the body’s own defense system to fight cancer, promising therapy

1985

• AIDS and cancer

• Drug resistance

• Need for new drugs

1990’s

• Gene sequencing and human genome project

• Gene therapies

2000s

• Stem cells

• Genetic detection, screenings

• Advances in technology