• Question: what causes cancer ?

    Asked by WILSON to Carolyn, Peter, Richard, Sara, Siana on 20 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by leila.XX.
    • Photo: Richard Unwin

      Richard Unwin answered on 20 Nov 2015:


      Hi Guys,

      Great question. Cancer is caused by damage to the DNA, which causes specific genes to be turned on or off that shouldn’t be, making the cell start to divide and grow in an uncontrolled and inappropriate manner. This damage can come from lots of places – we are getting small amounts all the time, but things like smoking can massively increase the amount of damage in the cells, making cancer much more likely.

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