New advances in technology mean that cancer research is now a broad church,
covering basic cell and molecular biology and pathology, but also going off into
epidemiology, structural biology and immunology. Scientists want to
understand what goes wrong in the basic processes that underpin cancer, from
cell proliferation and cell death to how cells become specialised to perform
different tasks. Once they have a handle on these, they hope to identify
prognostic markers and targets for treatment. There is also a huge amount of
work on genetic stability, including DNA repair and genetic predisposition to
cancer.
Advances are changing the…
