BIOL 1F25 Midterm: Cancer Summary of Lecture for December Exam
20 Dec 2016
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Process of human development involves a massive increase in the number of cells in the human body, from one to one hundred trillion. One estimate is that a total of ten quadrillion cell divisions /mitoses occur during our lifetime. Development does not just involve an increase in the number of cells. Cells also adopt a final fate as specified by their surroundings. Final fate is manifested through a particular cell appearance and function in a specific location. One aspect of reaching final fate is that the cell stops dividing. One aspect of development that is necessary but is not intuitively obvious: programmed cell death or apoptosis . For these processes to proceed normally, there must be a precise form of control. A major portion of this control comes from genes. However, no process is perfect and mistakes are made. Cancer involves a failure of both normal cell division control and of apoptosis.
