• Question: What does Chemoherapy and radiotherapy do to the cancer cells

    Asked by pranay900 to Alexis, Dr D, Helen, Jasmine, Mario on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Alexis Barr

      Alexis Barr answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      The aim of both of them is to kill cancer cells. Radiotherapy usually works by damaging the DNA in cancer cells so badly that the cell can’t repair the damage and so dies. Chemotherapy (with drugs) varies a lot in how it works depends on the exact drug you are using – but they all aim to either stop cancer cells from reproducing or killing them. The drugs I am trying to develop would stop cells from completing mitosis which stresses the cell out and so it dies.

    • Photo: Andrew Devitt

      Andrew Devitt answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      It’s all about forcing them to die. All cells have the power to decide to die so if we can damage them enough they will decide to die. This sort of cell suicide is the ideal way of getting rid of cells in the body as it happens really quickly and quietly (no fuss or inflammation). If we just popped all the cells in a tumour, that would cause us a whole host of other problems as a result of the cell contents spewing out all over the place.

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