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Fighting Cancer – Extending Life
In statistical terms, cancer kills 2,000 people in Europe every day. But statistics are one thing, patients and their fate another. Cancer patients are frightened people. People who have to bear pain and suffering. People who worry. A mother with breast cancer. A child with leukemia. A man fighting lung cancer.
A diagnosis of cancer still means a battle for quality of life. But increasingly cancer is being overcome – thanks to major medical progress. Scientists have discovered genetic aberrations, and understanding of the molecular processes that divert cells from their original function and make them reproduce uncontrollably is improving all the time. One of the new weapons in the fight against tumors – one currently being researched by Bayer HealthCare – is based on detailed understanding of these processes. One third of all forms of human cancer are associated with a genetic modification, including 90 percent of pancreatic tumors, half of all intestinal cancers and one third of all non-small-cell bronchial carcinomas.
Scientists call these modifications “activating mutations”, and they make cells divide. The process is regulated by a chain of biochemical signals, and scientists at Bayer HealthCare are studying ways of interrupting this signaling path. If the signal is interrupted, uncontrolled cell division, a characteristic feature of cancer, is suppressed.
This research carried out by Bayer HealthCare may help people in the future to win the battle against cancer more frequently than in the past.
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