(August 2003) Cancer: A Familiar Name, but What Does it Mean? Cancer refers to the hyperproliferation of cells that have lost the ability to be controlled by normal cell signals. Cancer cells have the ability to proliferate independent of their environment and are capable of metastasizing, or colonizing other tissues in the body. There are three basic characteristics of early cancer cells. The first is that they have lost the ability to undergo apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Cells that have suffered irreparable DNA damage activate specific proteases and nucleases that destroy the proteins and DNA of the cell, thereby…