How Does Chemo Fight Cancer?

Morning tumors!

Cancer sucks.

Can we just start with that?

Luckily, though, we’ve discovered a neat little thing called Chemotherapy!  

Which, it turns out, is amazing at beating the CRAP out of cancer tumors…

But how does this chemo stuff actually work??

To explain this, we gotta go ALL the way back to WW1…

Now, at the time, Europe was not a fun place to be.

There were a bunch of people in trenches shooting things at each other all over…

But one of the very WORST things of this time was this stuff:

MUSTARD GAS.

Basically, a yellow poisonous cloud of death.

If you were unlucky enough to be caught in this stuff, you would not be having a good time…

So, scientists of the time were scrambling to try to find some sort of antidote to this chemical weapon.

But that's when they discovered something interesting.

It turns out mustard gas also greatly damages people’s bone marrow — the stuff inside their bones.

And that’s when these scientist dudes had their lightbulb moment.

See, bone marrow cells share a common trait with cancer cells…

So the scientists thought:

And you know what?

It actually worked!

Mustard gas led to the development of modern-day chemotherapy!

But wait, wait…

How does this chemo stuff actually kill the cancer?

Imagine chemotherapy drugs as little angry guys that just run around attacking literally every cell in the body.

But, for some reason, they REALLY hate cells that replicate quickly.

One of the most common forms of these chemo drugs is called alkylating agents.

They basically go into the body…

Walk up to cells…

And take a BIG ol’ bite out of their DNA, just as they are about to replicate.

Now, for cells that replicate slowly (like most of the body’s cells), this isn’t a problem.

They just wait a while for their DNA to repair itself, no biggie.

But for cells that replicate rapidly, it's a BIG biggie.

They just straight up die.

And it’s not just cancer cells—chemo hits all rapidly dividing ones.

Think: your mouth, intestines, bone marrow, and yep, even your hair follicles.

(This is why cancer patients often go bald)

Yeah… f*** cancer.

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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