Page 126 - AWSAR 2.0

102 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Guardian of the Malady
Mr. Anirban Sarkar*
Email: as.anirban.sarkar@gmail.com
How many cells we have in our body? Are they more than the number of stars? asked Arko, my 12-year-old cousin
brother, gazing through the starry sky.
My birthplace, Ajhapur, is a small village, about 70 km from Kolkata. After almost a year, I went to my village this weekend. Autumn has arrived. Our place has a very common problem of a frequent power cut. Today is Sunday. Like other evenings, after load shedding, Arko and I went to the roof. The moonlight had covered the entire view. We sat on a mat; branches of an old neem tree made shadow over us.
“Our body is made up of trillions of cells. One trillion means 14 zeros after 1, and the stars are approximately 1 billion trillion in the universe, which means 21 zeros after 1,” I added.
“Cells are a lot more than I can ever
imagine! How can they stay and work together then? Even we cannot take unanimous decisions when playing cricket!” asked Arko.
“That is one of the mysteries of nature. All of our cells work in harmony. Their division, growth, functions, etc., are highly synchronized. Any deviation from this homeostasis leads to some kind of disease,” I said.
“What kind of disease is cancer then?” he asked.
“Well, that’s a long story for you to understand. Cells of our body are pre- programmed when to grow, when to divide, even when to die. When a cell becomes rogue, it divides rapidly. They escape death signals and thus become immortal. These growing cells form a tumor in our bodies. They force blood vessel–forming cells called endothelial
* Mr. Anirban Sarkar, Ph.D. Scholar from Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, is pursuing his research on “Immunometabolism in Cancer and its Modulation by Neem Leaf Glycoprotein (NLGP)”. His popular science story entitled “Guardian of the Malady” has been selected for AWSAR Award.