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  1. I will be summarizing and describing the topic Damian Casillas chose for his STEAM project. The topic of his paper and magnificent art piece is the effects of osteosarcoma in bone. He first describes what cancer is and that is diseased cells that multiply and spread out of control causing masses and growths in our body. Cancer is separated into four groups known as carcinomas, sarcomas, leukemias, and lymphomas. Our bones contain many different cells but the cells that maintain our bone’s strength and health are osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and osteocytes. Each of these cells in our bones performs specific functions to help our bones stay strong. If diseased cells like cancer cells form in our bones it interferes with those bone cells and compromises the bone’s stability and function. Osteosarcoma will begin to form in our osteoblasts which will then begin to create tumors, masses, and many other mutated cells. Damian sculpted a skull out of clay and showed us what the osteoblast mutated cells create and represent a sarcoma Cranii cancer. I think the skull is fascinating, you read the essay that he wrote and it’s interesting and I certainly learned something new and gained some deeper facts about bone cancer. But then you look at his art project and you visually get to see what those diseased cells create and what bone cancer really looks like. I also find it interesting that we get to imagine that it’s possible that this is what someone’s skull looks like who is diagnosed with that specific type of cancer. But those masses are usually under a lot of tissue, muscle, and our outer layers of skin.

    Halene A Johnson

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