• Question: Have you made any significant discoveres to treat cancer compared to 5 years ago?

    Asked by xfreakygeniousx to Naomi on 15 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by ilovenerds, traceymoran2, nanoguy, machinegunyoshi.
    • Photo: Naomi Elster

      Naomi Elster answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      I’ve only been in cancer research for just over a year, so it’s too soon to say. I have found a few things that could be quite significant, but I need more time to confirm that they actually work, and that they are safe, before they can be used to treat people. This is normal in science.

      However the last five years have seen big changes in how cancers are treated. We have more dugs to treat cancer now and these drugs are cleverly designed to attack only cancer cells and nothing else, meaning they are more effective and also safer and more pleasant for patients to use. We can also diagnose cancer better, which means we catch it earlier, and doctors can make better decisions about what drugs to use. There has been fantastic progress in cancer research and more progress is made every day.

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