by Sophie Mendell
A groan. A shuffle. A hunger for brains. From young adult novels, to gory games, to prestige TV, zombies are everywhere. The media horde is overwhelmingly terrifying, but why? Twisted and turned on the self, these creatures answer a primal question: if all humanity is lost, what remains? This is what cancer is. It’s our cells gone rogue, deprived of the necessary regulation to be healthy. Zombies and cancer both look like us, but they overtake and consume. However, a cancer apocalypse isn’t like your typical zombie apocalypse. It’s smarter, stronger, and evolving. Let’s try to understand how cancer and zombies are similar, and how cancer is worse.
To dive deeper, we must first understand our dread of the walking dead. Zombies unnerve us because they symbolize degeneration and decay. Cannibalistic and impervious to pain, zombies lack the essence of the people they once were. They embody the darker aspects of human nature. Similarily, cancer represents the darker aspects of cell biology. Cancer cells exist longer than they should and in places they shouldn’t. The systems that keep them happy, healthy, and in-sync with the body are broken. Both zombies and cancer represent loss of control that causes our own bodies to become our enemies.
Over the past two decades, two cancer researchers, Hanahan and Weinberg, have outlined primary characteristics, called hallmarks, describing the biological capabilities cancer acquires during its development. Let’s explore how these traits transform healthy cells into their zombie counterparts.
- Altered cellular metabolism – Similar to how zombies begin preferring brains over burritos, cancer changes how it consumes energy.
- Sustained proliferation – Cancer is often described as “uncontrolled cell growth,” It proliferates excessively, surpassing natural stopping points. Like a zombie horde, cancer has an insatiable hunger for expansion that it pursues relentlessly.
- Evading growth suppression – Cells receive signals telling them when to grow and when to stop; cancer hijacks the signal messengers, preventing “stop” signals from functioning. The systems necessary to control growth are corrupted in cancer. Like zombies, cancer doesn’t stop to rest or consider repercussions while causing destruction.
- Resisting cell death – Highly damaged cells should undergo apoptosis, a form of cell death. Cancer exists in a highly damaged state, but ignores apoptotic signals. Zombies may be decayed or missing limbs, but can still infect and threaten humans. Decayed and damaged beyond repair, zombies and cancer refuse to die.
- Tumor-promoting inflammation – Tumors create a harsh environment that facilitates their own growth while stressing surrounding cells. Compare this to a post-apocalyptic world where zombies feast freely while people struggle to find shelter and provisions.
- Genomic instability – Cancer cells have lost or mutated genetic information. Their fundamental blueprints are missing and changing. After a person succumbs to a zombie bite, they slowly lose their personality, consumed by primal urges. They forget their humanity, becoming a monster.
Now let’s think of the additional traits cancer alone has, and how these traits could make a more destructive zombie horde.
- Enabling replicative immortality – Simply put, they don’t stop dividing. Healthy cells know when to stop making more of themselves, cancer doesn’t. If this were a zombie horde, it would grow bigger in numbers without needing to consume more humans.
- Inducing angiogenesis – Cancer remodels blood flow patterns through a process called angiogenesis. This provides cancer cells with more nutrients and oxygen, enabling growth. Think of cunning zombies setting up traps to lure more human prey into their grasp.
- Avoiding immune destruction – Cancer cells trick other cells by hiding signs of disease in a process called immune evasion. Imagine a zombie that could communicate and travel with humans, undetected. This deception would allow the zombie to infect more people and would undermine survivors’ feeling of safety.
- Invasion and metastasis – Cancer can invade and colonize new tissues outside of where it originated. This is an aggressive and dangerous step in disease progression. Imagine if a zombie mob could selectively infiltrate new areas and ruthlessly infect with a multitude of new methods, like scratches and coughs.
Diagram showing the identified hallmarks that make cancer malignant and devastating at a cellular level. Image adapted from Hanahan 2022.
At their core, these characteristics represent a loss of regulation and control within the cell. Cancer cells “forget” what makes them good cellular citizens, and thus become aggressive, frightening, and toxic. Both zombies and cancer lose an understanding of how to keep themselves, their environment, and their neighbors happy. In the case of cancer though, the army we’re fighting is more subversive and resilient.
In most zombie-filled media, the remaining humans find ways to survive after the initial attack. As in every catastrophe, those fighting for the living adapt and adjust. Apocalyptic impacts become a catalyst for change. As we learn more about the traits that make cancer so malicious, we too, as scientists, medical professionals, patients, and people can adapt and adjust. We can learn how to best fight cancer, preventing its spread and destruction. Cancer is difficult because it’s complicated, intelligent, and it’s you; but that just means the answer is already inside us.
Edited by Daniela Danilova and Megan Amason
This article was written with assistance by Google Bard, following the NC DNA Day Blog Generative AI Policy. For a full breakdown, see this article’s documentation table.
