• Question: have you found a cure for cancer

    Asked by em to Mark, Claire, Franco, Koi, Linda on 12 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by emshepx.
    • Photo: Mark Booth

      Mark Booth answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      Hi

      No, that is not my line of work. Some parasites cause cancer and many cancers are caused by viruses, but most people who work on cancer are based in laboratories and are not epidemiologists
      cheers
      Mark

    • Photo: Franco Falcone

      Franco Falcone answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Hi em

      no don’t work on cancer, but my work may improve treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection, which can cause stomach cancer, but that would not be treating the cancer, it would be treating the cause of the cancer. In other words, prevention!

    • Photo: Arporn Wangwiwatsin

      Arporn Wangwiwatsin answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Hi Em,

      Even though I don’t work directly on cancer, I wish a cure (and/or an effective prevention) will be found soon! In fact, some parasites can cause certain kind of cancer so preventing infection from those parasites might also reduce the chance of getting cancer.

    • Photo: Linda Anagu

      Linda Anagu answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      @em, while it would be good to find a cure for cancer, for now I want to ensure that no child die from malaria in the world. Currently, a child in dies every 2 minutes from malaria.

    • Photo: Claire Bourke

      Claire Bourke answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Hi em, there are lots of important diseases being studied by scientists and cancer is definitely one of them. In science it takes many people to cure a disease and one way to improve our chances is to work together to share expertise in different things. Personally, I am not investigating cancer, although as the others have said, many parasites can also drive the development of cancers. Cancer biologists can help parasitologists and vice versa and hopefully together we can get closer to cures and therapies.

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