Question: Since bee poison can destroy cells, could we use this imformation to cure cancer? :)

Duncan McNicholl answered on 14 Nov 2017:

Well, I didn’t know that bee poison could destroy cells, so I’ve learned something new. If it can destroy normal cells, it can almost certainly destroy cancer cells, but I’m afraid finding something to kill cells isn’t the problem. Because a cancer tumour grows out of normal cells in your body, it has your DNA, and the cancer cells are very similar to your own normal cells, except that they grow really fast and won’t stop. Most cancer treatments involve killing the cells, but the real trick is that they only kill the cancer cells. Sometimes they do this by picking a space to kill cells in, which is how targeted radiotherapy works, and sometimes they use the fact that the cells are growing really fast to target them with poisons that work better if the cell is growing, which is how most chemotherapy works. With both kinds of targeting, some normal cells get killed off too, and that’s why people who are having radio- or chemotherapy feel so ill, and have their hair fall out and things. So bee poison might be useful in fighting cancer, but it’s not a cure yet. Keep thinking about it and asking questions like this, though, because that’s how we get to answers and I’d really like to see a cure for cancer one day.