Free radicals from tobacco, how it destroys cells, how it can lead to cancer and what can prevent that

[deleted-890047]

Lately I’ve been interested in cancer research and how it’s caused. I know tobacco use is one of the leading causes of cancer. I know that smoking can destroy cells almost immediately which can lead to cancer and other diseases. I’ve read stuff on how free radicals, a by-product of oxygen, can damage cells and tobacco contains that. I’ve researched things that can protect cells from free radicals and found out that antioxidents can. I want to do a project on what can protect cells from tobacco use, that hopefully will keep the free radicals from destroying it. How do I do this project? What tools will I need to conduct this experiment? And if it’s not possible for me to do this, what project is similar for me to do? Thank you.

[17eugenekim]

Hi there,

It sounds like you have a good topic/idea established for this project. I'd love to help shape this topic into a more concrete experimental plan.

First let's solidify some of our understanding. It sounds like you've done some background work already, which is great. There's a lot of interesting parts of the free radical interaction process, so you'll probably need to decide what specific subcomponent you want to focus on. Perhaps you want to look into how oxygen leads to free radicals forming in the body (another keyword you might want to look at is "reactive oxygen species (ROS)"); or how free radicals specifically interact with cells in different ways, including causing cancer; or how antioxidants interact with free radicals to produce their protective effect; or how tobacco use leads to an increased physiological presence of these free radicals. Let us know if you need help with more background research, including if there's a scientific paper you want to read that's restricted-access.

Real quick it's worth noting that cellular damage that leads to cancer is not necessarily going to "destroy" the cell. Rather, cancer arises from damage to the cell's DNA (which free radicals love to interact with) that leads it to behave erratically, becoming a cancerous cell. In fact, one of the crucial mechanisms of becoming a cancer cell is for the cell to avoid being destroyed so that it can grow and divide in an unrestrained manner. This could be one good starting point for further background research.

You'll also have to keep in mind what kind of tools or resources you have access to. Do you plan on finding a research mentor that has a lab you could work with? (This is probably difficult given the current restrictions in place due to COVID-19). What do you have access to? This includes both chemicals or cell culture to use, and measurement tools to collect data with. You will probably have trouble finding cancer cell lines to work on, in which case you'll have to reframe the experiment around safer and more feasible things like measuring antioxidant levels or free radical reactions.

Lastly, this old thread may be of some help, both with background and experiment ideas, so definitely check it out: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10938

Hope that helps.