October is breast cancer awareness month. This month serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come in understanding breast cancer and how continued research is vital to developing more effective and personalized treatments. When it comes to treatment, several factors guide the medical team’s approach. The stage and grade of the tumor determine the […]
With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I wanted to pull back the curtain on how we study breast cancer in the lab. A research lab is quite different from a clinical lab, mainly due to patient involvement. In research labs, scientist do not diagnose patients or work with fresh tissues from current patients. Instead, […]
As cancer progresses and grows in the body, it can begin to outgrow its current environment (also known as primary tumour site) and start the process of moving to another part of the body. This process is known as metastasis. I’d like to take you through this journey just like Miss Frizzle would in the […]
When most people hear the word “cancer”, “cool” isn’t the first word that comes to mind. But for scientists, cancer is fascinating, because of how clever and adaptable cancer cells can be. The reasons behind this fascination are captured in a fundamental paper called “The Hallmarks of Cancer”, which lays out the key traits that […]
If you’ve ever had a relative with cancer, writing down the details of their disease is probably the last thing on your mind. But I hope this post changes your mind and you pay a bit more attention on those details. How can your family history help you when you have been diagnosed with cancer? […]
In my pervious articles, I discussed how our bodies are made up of DNA and genes, which serve as the instruction manual for our bodies. I want to discuss today about what happens when one of those instructions (genes) gets changed (a mutation). When we think of mutations, the best way to describe them is […]
Building on my previous discussion about breast cancer, I want to explore how advances in mRNA technology—and its behind-the-scenes regulators, non-coding RNAs—could revolutionize cancer treatment. Just as mRNA vaccines saved lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are now investigating how this technology could be applied to therapeutic cancer vaccines and precision medicine approaches for diseases […]
“You have breast cancer.” Imagine hearing that from your doctor, how would you react? The words can feel like a punch to the gut. Fear, uncertainty, and a whirlwind of questions immediately follow. Like many, I found myself paralyzed by fear when considering the possibility. What is breast cancer, really? How is it treated? Is […]
