HEalth Issue: New Strategies for tackling cancer

Making healthy cells win 'war' may provide cancer cure London: In a discovery that could open up completely new strategies for tackling cancer, scientists have found that healthy and cancerous cells in body engage in deadly battles in whcih the losers die finally.         Researchers at the University College London found for the first time the gladiatorial contests between normal cells and tumours in mammals and the losers were killed by a process of "induced biological suicide" called apoptosis.         If balance is in favour of cancer cells, they will cut a swathe through healthy cells around them and spread. But, if the healthy cells get the upper hand, they will surround and eliminate the cancer cells, experts found.         Although such "cell wars" bave been seen before in fruit flies, scientists did not know until now that they also occurred in mammals - presumably including humans. In future, experts believe, it may be possible to "tip the balance" so that healthy cells win in the struggle with cancer, the Daily Mail reported.