Can fruit fly research help improve survival of cancer patients? New anti-cancer strategy -- blocking chemicals produced by tumors -- could boost life span, health span

 

Damian Engenheiro

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 6

11/1/21

 

University of California - Berkeley. "Can fruit fly research help improve survival of cancer patients? New anti-cancer strategy -- blocking chemicals produced by tumors -- could boost life span, health span." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 September 2021. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210916131326.htm>. 

 

                        Can fruit fly research help improve survival of cancer patients?

                                                            ScienceDaily

 

The central idea of the article, “Can fruit fly research help improve survival of cancer patients?” by ScienceDaily, is that scientists have found that cancer and tumors in fruit flies and mice are very similar to humans. They have found that how we react to these diseases are very similar and the scientists have an idea that instead of trying to eliminate the disease, we can make it so that our bodies can deal with them. The article got straight to the point by saying that we can see similarities with how we react and how fruit flies react to tumors and cancer. The scientists introduced the idea of finding a way to deal with the dangerous chemicals that the cancer is throwing off. The article also states that the chemical that it releases called cytokine is known for causing inflammation. By eliminating the cytokine and leaving the tumor alone, the article says that “The host can live significantly longer and healthier with the same tumor burden." Another thing that the article said is that the fruit fly has multiple advantages compared to other animals that are used for experimentation. For example, you can experiment with a lot more flies and you can observe them right to the moment they die. With other animals, you have to euthanize them before they die because of ethical concerns.

            This impacts us because we could possibly find a permanent cure to cancer later on the road when more experimentation is done with the fruit flies. This also introduces a new way to deal with these life threatening diseases which could have a lot more experimentation done on it. Another big impact on us is that we could start using fruit flies for experiments which could open up a lot more possibilities. 

Overall, this article was very well written. Although it could have explained some confusing concepts more to get a better understanding, it gave lots of information about what scientists are learning about today and about fruit flies. I would have liked to have a better understanding of some of the concepts, but it was very interesting to read and gave readers insight on what the future could look like.