Question: how can you tell if a cell nis a cancer cell

Helen Tunbridge answered on 18 Jun 2013:

It can be quite difficult if you’re just looking at one cell to tell if it is cancerous or not, the best way is to look at it in the tissue it came from. If a tumour has formed, which is not separate from the other normal cells around it (if it has invaded the tissue), it is probably cancerous. There are also interesting markers, like if it makes too much or too little of certain kinds of molecules, it is more likely to be a cancer cell. However, just because it makes too much/little, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be cancerous. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with cells, some of which will cause cancer and others that won’t!!