Thinking of code

I tend to think of cellular DNA code as like a computer program. There are different parts of the code that gets called like subroutines in a computer program.

I think of cancer cells as containing damaged DNA code that is operating like a runaway computer program.

When I was a student in Computer Science at NC State, I use to laugh at freshmen who would frequently create runaway programs. A runaway program is a program that was accidentlly written in a way that would never stop like the program below. "i" will never be o or less so the computer will run the program forever. The author would probably have intended i = i - 1.

i = 10
while i > 0 do
i = i +1
print i
end

At that time in school the results from computer programs were printed out on computer paper. If a program ran away, you might get a 3 inch thick stack of paper. Fortunately, the computer had limits on how long a program could run or how much paper could be printed or the paper would never have stopped. (Yes, I wrote a runaway program once and got the stack of paper).

Just like one small change in the + sign or - sign in the statement i = i + 1 made the difference in a working program versus a catastrophic destruction of trees in paper use, I think a small change in a DNA code strand can create a runaway program in a cancer cell.

If researchers could compare active DNA strands in a normal cell with the active DNA code in a cancer I wonder if they could identify where the code is broken. I don't know if researchers have that kind of capability yet.

Interestingly enough, cells actually have internal DNA code that verifies that the other DNA code in the cell is working correctly. If the checking code finds a mistake it triggers other DNA code to terminate the cell so that it doesn't keep operating. This actually happens all the time in our bodies. Cells do make mistakes in our bodies and terminate. In cancer cells, either the code checks have failed or the terminate code has failed so the damaged cell keeps going and replicating. Since the exterior cell wall of the cancer cell still looks normal, the body's defense systems don't detect anything wrong and don't attack the bad cell. The cancer cell grows and replicates without anything to stop it.

If we could just understand how the code is broken maybe we could gain insight in how to cure cancer. But then again how would we fix the cancer cell code or terminate the cancer cell. How could we identify a runaway cell and how could we target it. I still wonder if the cell wall changes in some unique way in a metastasized cancer cell that would allow us to target it. Then maybe we could elminate the spread within the body and cancer would just become a chronic local condition instead of attacking the entire body.