It might not be possible at this time to eradicate cancer altogether. But we may be able to stop cancer cells in their tracks through a process called senescence.

In senescence, cells don't divide. And when cells don't divide, they don't grow. In such a scenario then, cancer cells wouldn't divide and therefore couldn't grow.

Think about this:

According to lab tests on mice, triggering senescence in certain cells hampers the growth of some tumors.

Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are the ones behind the scenes on this project -- the study appears online in EMBO Reports, a publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization -- and all eyes are on the p53 gene.

The p53 gene lives within cells and works to nip cancer in the bud by springing to action in damaged cells that may be spinning themselves into a cancer frenzy.

Researchers say senescence ordered by the p53 gene is extremely important in suppressing tumor formation and is as important as apoptosis -- a type of programmed cell death. But in some cancers, senescence might not be enough to halt cancer, they found.

OK, so senescence is not a perfect approach to halting all cancers. But it seems to work for some -- so I say for now, let's take what we can get.

All cells in our body are programmed to die. They have a limited lifespan and they die when they are damaged, worn out or no longer needed by the body. This is a normal process called apoptosis, programmed cell death, that the body depends on to be healthy. When cells die they are replaced by new ones.

In cancer cells the process of apoptosis fails and the damaged cells live on and multiply indefinitely and uncontrollably. Most chemotherapy drugs that are given to cancer patients are aimed at killing fast dividing cells, this is sometimes successful at halting the disease but these drugs damage many normal tissues.

Researchers look to find smarter drugs that do not have severe side effects but target only the cancer cell itself. A new drug being studied in the lab suggests that it may prove to be more effective and less toxic than current chemotherapy drugs. The drug called ABT-737 has a different strategy for attacking cancer. Instead of poisoning the cancer cells, the new drug attempts to reactivate the cell death program that had failed.

The leader of the project, Dr. David Huang says "Much more remains to be done to assess the drug's safety and effectiveness in patients, but early results from the laboratory are promising. Our hope is that the new drug will prove to be more effective while having fewer side effects".

Apoptosis is a mechanism that causes programmed cell death in our bodies. It all has to do with proteins and enzymes. The cancer cell mechanism is somehow broken and the enzyme that initiates programmed cell death does not work. This allows the cancer cell to grow into tumors.

Scientists have found a way to trick the cancer cells into committing suicide by using a synthetic compound that induces apoptosis. Paul J. Hergenrothers, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois states "By bypassing the broken pathway, we can use the cells' own machinery to destroy themselves."

The scientists think that this can lead to personalized anti-cancer therapy.

Several weeks ago, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA researchers reported that capsaicin in habanero peppers had the power to drive prostate cancer cells to commit suicide.

In a new and different study done by University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researchers, capsaicin is reported to have the same cancer-fighting properties in preventing or slowing the growth of pancreatic cancer tumors. Capsaicin appears to signal pancreatic cancer cells to follow pathways leading to their own cellular death too. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States and is one of the most aggressive cancers, with an extremely poor prognosis.

All in all, it is beginning to look like cancer cells do not seem able to stand the heat, but if you can, chili peppers might be a good idea to include in your cancer prevention diet. There is a magazine devoted to all the varieties of the chili pepper, called Chili Pepper, that includes recipes for every meal of the day, including appetizers and desserts.