Tag: non-infectious diseases

Leukaemia is cancer of blood-forming cells. Leukaemia usually causes large numbers of white blood cells to be made. These abnormal cells usually can't carry out the normal functions of white blood cells. They crowd the bone marrow and spill into the blood and may then spread into organs such as the liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. Sometimes, they may also spread into the fluid around the brain and spinal cord. Because, there are so many abnormal white cells crowded into the bone marrow, the marrow sometimes can't make enough normal red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.

Metastasis, or metastatic disease, is the spread of a cancer disease from one organ or part to another not directly connected with it. Metastasis depends on the cancer cells acquiring two separate abilities -- increased motility and invasiveness. Cells that metastasize are basically of the same kind as those in the original tumor. If a cancer arises in the lung and metastasizes to the liver, the cancer cells in the liver are lung cancer cells. However, the cells have acquired increased motility and the ability to invade another organ.

Disease that lasts for longer period of time is called chronic. Cancer is a disease caused due to abnormal growth of body cell mass.

• Palynology is the study of pollen grains and other spores, especially as found in archaeological or geological deposits. Pollen extracted from such deposits may be used for studying past climates and environments by identifying plants which are growing in a particular environment and climate.
  
• Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body.
  
• Phycology or algology is a branch of life science and often is regarded as a subdiscipline of botany which involves the scientific study of algae. Algae are important as primary producers in aquatic ecosystems.
  
• Sericulture or silk farming is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk.  Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, Bombyx mori (the caterpillar of the domesticated silk moth) is the most widely used and intensively studied silkworm.
  

An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, oncogenes were first discovered in certain retroviruses and were identified as cancer-causing agents in many animals. In the mid 1970s, the American microbiologists, John Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus tested the theory that healthy body cells contain dormant viral oncogenes that, when triggered, cause cancer. 
Thus, the correct answer is option (D), 'J.M. Bishop and H.E. Vermus'.

Oncogenes are mutated forms of proto-oncogenes that promote cell growth. Their activation or overexpression leads to uncontrolled cell division, which is the hallmark of cancer.

Vinca  rosea is a native and endemic ornamental and medicinal plant, o source for the anticancer drugs vincristine and vinblastine.

Vitamin E is a group of eight fat-soluble compounds that include four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. It is estimated that vitamin E provides protection against carcinogens but the mechanism is not clearly understood. Gamma-tocotrienol, a cofactor found in natural vitamin E preparations, may decrease prostate tumour formation.