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Written by Staff Writer Alexis Dong Cancer has been a part of human history for millions of years. The earliest recorded description of cancer goes back all the way to ancient Egyptian medical records from around 3000 BCE. Today, millions of people still die from this disease.  With a history that long, why have we…

Hi there! So you’ve decided you want to explore cancer biology a little deeper and learn more about all the interesting subfields it has. This guide will help you dip your toes into cancer biology research by explaining how to read review papers. By practicing this skill, you’ll soon be able to read research papers…

Written by Staff Writer Arsheen Kaur Every time a cell in your body divides, something weird happens: its chromosomes get shorter. This happens because the enzyme that controls DNA replication, DNA polymerase, can’t copy the end of one of the strands of DNA.  If this happens enough times, it can make the cell unable to…

A Deep-dive into Syn-Bio Oncology ft. Spliced. Introduction What if a future cure for cancer wasn’t from chemotherapy, immunotherapies, or surgery but something normally thought of as “bad”? Bacteria (yes, really) could offer us a solution to normally hard-to-reach tumors that our current attempts haven’t been able to crack, through a process most people associate…

Written by Staff Writer Arsheen Kaur Which one has a higher risk of cancer: blue whales or mice? If cancer were simply a numbers game, blue whales should be absolute giants when it comes to tumors. With around a thousand times more cells than a human, and a lifespan of 80-90 years, there should be…

If all cells have the same DNA, then how come there are different types? And how is this process related to cancer? Gene regulation is how the cell controls what genes are expressed, when they’re expressed, and how much they’re expressed . Some examples we’ll explore are: In this post, we’ll look at how gene…

After proteins are made by ribosomes during translation (here is a previous post covering how proteins are made), they require many additional chemical modifications to fold into the right shape to perform their different functions. These changes are essential because even the smallest changes to structure can dramatically alter how a protein behaves in the…

As we saw in the previous post, proteins are essential to life because of all the different functions that they perform. But how does the cell make them?  In this post, we’ll explore how proteins are assembled inside the cell through a process called protein synthesis, and how disruptions in this process can play a…

You may already know proteins as the molecules that can help build muscle. That’s true, but proteins do far more than that. They act as enzymes to speed up reactions, defend the body as part of the immune system, and regulate nearly every process that keeps cells alive. Proteins also play a big role in…

All living organisms on Earth have something in common: DNA. DNA is the genetic material that tells our cells how to make proteins and RNA. These molecules help carry out almost all of the tasks required for life. Even though almost every cell in your body contains the exact same DNA, cells can look and…