why do cells refuse to die?

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I know that when cells refuse to die, they can turn into cancer cells. What forces them to *refuse* to die? What else happens to them besides turning into cancer cells?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is a complex mechanism in these cells that tries to repair damage that happens all the time. Almost all the time it’s successful. And even if it fails one or two times it’s no big problem. When it fails too often however it will decide that it’s impossible to repair, and instruct the cell to self destruct.

The cell can’t initiate this on its own. It has to be instructed by the mechanism that controls the damage.

But sometimes it’s this mechanism that’s affected in one of those not repairable problems. And that’s the moment when it goes shit. Because the cell gets damaged more and more, but doesn’t destroy itself. At some point it can malfunction in a way that we know as cancer.

This is very simplified, I left some stuff out. There is a great video on YouTube by the channel “kurzgesagt” about cancer, you should check it out.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s not that they refuse to die. They just don’t wait before duplicating, causing a mass of tissue (a tumor)