Healthy vs. Cancerous Cells Teacher Resource
If preferred the student activity word document can be downloaded to the right. Click the student activity document link to download.
Activity 1 Student Version
Activity 1 Teacher Resource
To the left is the teacher resource, containing some general background information and suggested solutions.
Activity 1 - Healthy Cells vs. Cancerous Cells.
Aims
This activity sets the students up to know important general background concepts, so they can understand the nanomedicine activities.
At the end of the activity the students should understand that:
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Cancer is the result of uncontrolled rapid cell growth.
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Different cells go through the cell cycle at different speeds.
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There are checkpoints that the cell must go through before it can divide to make copies of itself and if the cell does not pass these checkpoints it will go through apoptosis to prevent it from passing on its bad instructions.
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There are five main differences between healthy and cancerous cells.
Curriculum Links
Background Information
A single cell is the basic unit of life, a human is made up of trillions of individual cells. A scientific study estimated that an average human contains 37.2 trillion cells ; with these cells organising themselves into tissues, organs and organ systems .
Cell cycle is made up of interphase (growing and synthesis portion of cell cycle) and mitosis (dividing portion of cell cycle) . Cells can start becoming cancerous at any part in the cell cycle if they are no longer listening to the cell instructions (such as to enter G 0 (senescence) or to undergo apoptosis) or obeying the cell checkpoints( three checkpoints that check the cell’s DNA is fine, if it needs repair, if DNA replication went ok and if the cell has what it needs to divide) going rogue and replicating itself uncontrollably, which can lead to cancer .
It is important to understand that cancer is the result of the cell not following the cell cycle correctly and that its key trait is unregulated cell replication . Some healthy cells also divide quickly, but it is still controlled such as in hair cells and nail cells. But in cancer cells it is uncontrolled fast growth.
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The students have a worksheet they must fill out as the class listens to a clip about the cell cycle and cancer.
The link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVCjdNxJreE&t=406s
You do not need to show the students the whole clip as there is a segment in there that they do not need to know about.
Start the clip at the start, watch the clip till 6:42 minutes in and jump ahead to 8:08 minutes and play the rest from here.
The blue is what the students should be answering, and the red is extra detail/ context to the question answer.
Student Activity
Answers For Student Activity
References:
1. Bianconi E, Piovesan A, Facchin F, Beraudi A, Casadei R, Frabetti F, Vitale L, Pelleri MC, Tassani S, Piva F, Perez-Amodio S, Strippoli P, Canaider S., 2013, “An estimation of the number of cells in the human body.” , Ann Hum Biol. Vol. 40, Iss. 6, pp. 463-71. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2013.807878. Epub 2013 Jul 5
2. Enders, GH 2010, Cell Cycle Deregulation In Cancer, n.p.: New York : Springer, c2010., DEAKIN UNIV LIBRARY's Catalog, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 September 2018
3. Hickman, C, Roberts, L, Keen, S, Eisenhour, D, Larson, A, I’Anson, H, 2014, “Chapter 3 Cells as Units of Life”, Integrated principles of zoology, Dubuque, Iowa : McGraw-Hill Education, 15th edition, pp. 35-54.
4. NIH, National Cancer Institute, updated 2017, ‘What is Cancer?’, retrieved 29/08/2018, https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer .
5. My VMC (Virtual Medical Centre), 2005, ‘What is Cancer?’, retrieved on 20/09/2018, https://www.myvmc.com/anatomy/what-is-cancer/