How Cancer Starts

A new analysis reports several cancers rising among people under fifty, even though most cancers still strike older people. To see why age matters so much, this film follows one cell: how the body balances division and death, how DNA copying errors and carcinogens create mutations, why cancer needs both a stuck accelerator and broken brakes, what the guardian protein p53 does, why hits pile up with age, and the tricks a tumour needs to become dangerous: immortality, its own blood supply and the ability to spread. Seed a rogue cell, break p53, run Knudson’s two-hit lives and switch on telomerase yourself. Education, not medical advice.

The cell that won’t stop

More than a hundred diseases, one way to begin.

Divide only when asked

A body is a society of cells that follow the rules.

A typo in the instructions

Mutations are mostly accidents.

The accelerator

Cancer genes were our own genes all along.

The brakes

Why some families get cancer younger.

The guardian

One protein decides: repair or self-destruct.

One step at a time

A single mutation is almost never enough.

Cheating the countdown

Normal cells can only divide so many times.

Its own blood supply

Without vessels, a tumour stays tiny.

Crossing the wall

What makes a tumour a cancer.

The hallmarks

One checklist for a hundred diseases.

Why age matters

Steady mistakes, steep risk.

Chance, and more than chance

Some hits we can avoid.

Back to the news

A real rise, a puzzle still open.

The cell that won’t stop

Many rare accidents, and an open question.

Read the full story as text · อ่านภาษาไทย

This interactive 3D film needs JavaScript. PlanetPast home