The Effect of Radiation on Normal and Cancerous Cells Devany Olson, Avery Bond, and Pamela Correa Leukemia is a form of cancer of the blood or bone marrow. (2) The job of a white blood cell is used to fight off infections in the body. When someone has leukemia there white blood cells are “abnormal”. This means that they do not die like normal blood cells. It crowds the normal cells, and makes it harder for the cells to do their job. (3) Radiation essentially damages the genes in the cells. This stops the cancer genes from growing and dividing. Eventually the cells will die. Cancer cells divide and spread very quickly, and they easily become uncontrollable. Radiations job is to kill the cells, usually the cells that are dividing quickly are the ones that die first. It is sometimes harder to kill the cells that are inactive or “resting”. (1) Materials: Normal/ Leukemic dog bone marrow cells Electronic/Regular pipette *Radiation* Cell plates 16 tubes Microscope Hemacytometer Background Infromation Methods Results Discussion Graphs and Tables Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Leukemia Home Page. Retrieved from leukemia.html What is Leukemia? THE MEDICAL NEWS | from News-Medical.Net - Latest Medical News and Research from Around the World. Retrieved from medical.net/health/What-is-Leukemia.aspx What You Need To Know About? Leukemia - National Cancer Institute. Comprehensive Cancer Information - National Cancer Institute. Retrieved from Retrieved from ontherapyprinciples/radiation-therapy-principles-how-does-radiation-work Radiation Therapy for Cancer - National Cancer Institute. Comprehensive Cancer Information - National Cancer Institute. Retrieved from References Procedure: 1.Divide cells into four tubes: Label each tube according to the amount of radiation they will be exposed to. (control, 500 rads, 1,000 rads, 1,500 rads) 2.Give the tubes to certified lab technician. Place each tube in radiator for the amount of time it needs to be exposed to allotted amount. 3.Label another four tubes according to the amount of radiation they were exposed to. 4.Add 1.2 ml of growth medium to each tube using electronic pipette. 5.Add 10 micro liters of cells into the growth medium inside the tube. 6.Add 200 micro liters of growth factor/supplemented media into the tube. 7.Label each row (across) of the cell plates according to the radiation they were exposed to. 8.Add.5 ml of cells in growth medium onto plate 9.Add.5 ml of water in last well of each row. 10.Put the plate in an incubator for a week. 11.Pipet 20 mL of the cells from each circle and put it into labeled tube. 12.Put 20 mL of die into the labeled tube. 13.Load the hemacytometer with the solution of the die and the cells, and put it under a microscope. 14.Count how many alive cells there are left. 15.Do steps 1-14 for the leukemia cells. Normal Cells: Dose of Radiation:Amount of Alive cells (A) (Cells x 10^6) Amount of Alive cells (B) (Cells x 10^6) Amount of Alive cells (C) (Cells x 10^6) Average: None Rads Rads Rads Cancer Cells: Dose of Radiation: Amount of Alive cells (A) (Cells x 10^6) Amount of Alive cells (B) (Cells x 10^6) Amount of Alive cells (C) (Cells x 10^6) Average: None Rads Rads Rads Our results show us that the way the cells reacted were very similar. As the amount of radiation increased the number of viable cells decreased. Radiation kills cells which is why it makes it useful for cancer patients. It kills the cells, and they reproduce good cells. This is how the process of Mitosis relates to this project. Our qualitative data showed us that they have similar effects. When we looked into the microscope we could see the differences. As the doses increased the amount of viable cells decreased. In conclusion, our results and data show that the higher the amount of radiation is the lower amount of cells there are going to be. Radiation is energy that is carried by waves or a stream of particles. Radiation works by damaging the genes (DNA) in cells. Genes control how cells grow and divide. So when radiation damages the genes of a cancer cell, it can’t grow and divide any more. Over time, the cells die. This means radiation can be used to kill cancer cells. Our averages form our control to the highest amount of radiation increased tremendously. However it increased less for cancer cells then for normal cells. The normal cells went from 2.19 to.0019, and the cancer cells went from 2.13 to.23. From this data you can see that normal cells decreased more than the cancer cells.