What is the Role of Mitosis in Cancer?

                                                                                          Mary Berg
                                                                                          Whelan
 In life, everybody has a buddy. Whether it’s your siblings, your mom/dad, or even your cat, we all have a buddy and a buddy system.  Cells have a “buddy system” with things in common that makes a big process.  The process I will be introducing is called mitosis. But I am going to discuss it a little further, I will be talking about the role of the process, mitosis in cancer and how it can be cured.

First of all, what is cancer? Cancer is a disease that can basically occur everywhere on your body, including the outside such as your skin. Cancer is caused by cells that grow uncontrollably.  Cancer starts out as a tumor, which starts out as kind of like a plant growth. But once the tumor starts, a process called metastasis, takes the tumor and spreads the cells and bacteria of it all over the body through the bloodstream. The tumor doesn’t always spread, but it most likely is to. Everybody will inherit their parents’ genes, especially from mother to daughter, and father to son. The genes you get are most likely from your parents of the same gender (Cell Reproduction: Mitosis and Cancer).

Secondly, cancer cells start in the nucleus where the DNA is, and your genes are in the DNA chromosomes. The nucleus is the center of the whole cell “buddy system”.  A system is where a bunch of little parts come together to make one big idea, and/or a big process.  The DNA and genes is what makes the cancer come together and form the process, Mitosis (Gregory).

Furthermore, some discoveries that were made on cancer cells. Such as “Normally, cells divide every 24 hours in a very orderly fashion. One becomes two, then three, then four, ETC. They all have a controlled start and stop time on when they divide. But when they divide nonstop in a chaotic fashion, the result can be cancer” (Cancer Discovery). “The thing all cancers have in common is the uncontrolled growth in cells” (Cancer Discovery). “100 genes make the difference of healthy cells and cancer cells. You may never smoke in your life but you can still get lung cancer” (Cancer Discovery). Cancer cells are made from mitosis because, when your cell keeps spliting ad reproducing your cancer cells are born (Cancer Discovery).

Pursing this further, there are many types of treatments that someone with cancer can go in and get. Such as surgery, surgery can be used us a treatment if the cancer isn’t spread though your whole body. The doctors go in and try to get rid of most of the cancer and in most cases everyone with cancer has surgery at least once (Society). Another treatment is Chemo, “Chemotherapy (chemo) is the use of medicines or drugs to treat cancer they go in and try to target the cancer cells” (Society).  Another treatment is Radiation therapy, “Radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or waves to destroy or damage cancer cells” (Society). Lastly “Targeted therapy is a newer type of cancer treatment that uses drugs or other substances to more precisely identify and attack cancer cells, usually while doing little damage to normal cells” (Society). There are many more different types of treatments a patient with cancer can go through those were just a few.

Many people thought that cancer just comes to your body when really cancer starts due to mitosis. Mitosis is the main starting of cancer due to the harm mass of multiplying cells (Cancer Discovery).   

Bibliography:

"Cell Reproduction: Mitosis and Cancer." 25 February 2004. IUPUI DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY. 16 April 2012 <http://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/N100/2k4ch8mitosisnotes.html>.

Gregory, Michael. "Cancer." Suny. <http://faculty.clintoncc.suny.edu/faculty/michael.gregory/files/bio%20100/bio%20100%20lectures/cancer/cancer.htm>.

DBQ: "How Free Were Free Blacks In The North?"

Author's Note: This is a DBQ essay on the question, "How Free Were Free Blacks In The North?" I will be answering the Document Questions, and giving my opinion on how I think how free they really were.

How do you feel when you want to go eat lunch with a friend of even talk to a friend, but your parents won’t let you? Have you ever been given a privilege but it's not really what you want?  This situation relates to blacks in the North around the 1800s. The emancipation announced that the blacks were free from slavery, but, there were a lot of things they couldn’t do. They had many restrictions and would be punished if they didn’t follow them. That’s why my opinion to the question, “How Free Were Free Blacks in the North?” is that they were not allowed barely any freedom; it was not fair at all.

After the emancipation said that the blacks were free from slavery, every black was excited and happy, but I think they expected too much. They had so many boundaries; it wasn’t what they expected at all. The only things they could do were to live and pay taxes. They were ordered to keep to themselves. They couldn’t associate with white people at all. Even though the blacks were free from slavery, that didn’t mean they were on the same level as the white people, they were still the underdogs.  They were forced to build their own churches, schools, and concert halls for the black kids.  The black adults lost the right to vote, which was a huge deal back then. The black woman, although, were treated the worst. The black woman were probably the on the lowest level. In the 1800’s even white woman were treated unfairly. They’re jobs were to clean, cook, and nurse. Nothing else, so imagine a black woman, and how low of a level they are on.  I would not like to be living in the 1800s!

Would you be disappointed if you were good friends with a person of another race and you could not even talk to them? At this time there was a lot of racism going on. The blacks could not do things with the white people. They could not dine and eat at a white man’s table. That was forbidden, even if black and the white family was friends. The blacks could not be in the jury or attend courts even though before free blacks could go be a part of the jury, and attend courts whenever he wanted to. The black men could not marry white woman even if they fell in love. They could not represent the legislature. They couldn’t help white men when they are sick. They couldn’t even talk to the white people in public places! It was completely ridiculous what the blacks couldn’t do. The blacks were human beings too, and they should have been treated equally.

Even though a lot of blacks were treated unequally, there were some states that were generous to the blacks; for example, Massachusetts. They were the only state that allowed black males to be a part of the jury. The black men could vote too but that was the case in a lot of the New England states. Massachusetts was the state most blacks wanted to go to. They would abandon the state that they were living in, and go to Massachusetts where there was more freedom.  They were a lot of states the blacks wouldn’t want to live in. For example, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin were the states that the blacks couldn’t even vote in. They didn’t like the blacks too much. All the other Northern-Eastern states had restricted boundaries if the blacks were to vote or not. The blacks most likely wanted to move to the New England states, that’s where all the freedom was.  

As you can see, the “free” blacks in the north of North America didn’t actually have freedom.  They had boundaries and they could only do a few things without breaking the laws and getting punished. The white people though they were better than the blacks. They thought they were too good to even look at them.  They were suddenly mistaken. This overall situation reminds me of the Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rosa Parks famous events how blacks were not at all on the same level of equality.



 

Bibliography

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072053/posts

1700. "“We Shall Overcome”: Black History in America." Random History and Word Origins for the Curious Mind. Nap., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://www.randomhistory.com/black-history-in-america.html>.

1940s, the. "The History of Black Voting Rights [Great read!]." Latest Articles. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072053/posts>.

Race-based legislation." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2957.html>.

Leon Litwack, North of Slavery, University of Chicago Press, 1961

Charles Mackay, Life and Liberty in America: or Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada, in1857-1858, London, 1859