• Question: Will anybody find the cure for cancer?

    Asked by Isabelle_Sasha to Anna, George, Jodi, Rob, Stefan on 18 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by emily_jade, Anna W, emilie king.
    • Photo: Jodi Schneider

      Jodi Schneider answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      I really hope so, Isabelle! Tonight I spoke with a bioinformatics researcher: her goal in life is to cure cancer. She believes it’s possible in our lifetime — she says that we have all the information and that we need to integrate that information.

    • Photo: Anna Scaife

      Anna Scaife answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Yes, I agree with Jodi, I think we should see this within our lifetime. We’ve already conquered so many illnesses it’s unbelievable.

      Last century, the Smallpox virus killed up to 5 million people. By 1979 it had been eradicated through vaccination. That’s such an achievement.

      When I was at school, the news was full of dire warnings about the spread of HIV. This is a different kind of illness to Cancer, but back in the 1980s someone with HIV had a predicted life expectancy of only ~10 years from diagnosis. Today, if they’re diagnosed early enough, someone with HIV is expected to live as long as they would if they were perfectly healthy.

      Cancer is the next target and medical research is moving so quickly that I think we should expect to see, if not a complete cure, then a way to manage cancer in the same way we can now manage HIV.

    • Photo: Stefan Lines

      Stefan Lines answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Yes. We’ve made a lot of progress with Cancer. There have been several ‘cures’ for specific Cancers that just aren’t available until they’ve been through rigorous testing. Whether there is a universal cure for all types, we might have to wait a while for, but I agree with Anna that we should see this in our lifetime.

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