• Question: How is it that white blood cells protect our body from deseases and can also cause cancer?

    Asked by Noraa to Ben, Lizzie, Francis, Max, Sian on 7 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by Leo74.
    • Photo: Ben Mulhearn

      Ben Mulhearn answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Any cell of the body can become cancerous if it’s ‘breaks’ fail and it starts to rapidly divide for no reason. White blood cells are particularly vulnerable to this because they are already rapidly dividing cells. Therefore if this happens, they can cause cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma.

    • Photo: Lizzie Wright

      Lizzie Wright answered on 10 Mar 2018:

      As Ben said, its a difficult balance. If normal cells become mutated, they can develop into cancerous cells. It depends on which mutations and the number of mutations that occur.

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