Cancer is just as deadly as it was 50 years ago. Here's why that's about to change.

Why haven't we cured cancer yet? It seems like almost every day, we hear about another miraculous advance in cancer treatment. Drugs that cause tumors to shrink, gene therapies, and even a possible vaccine. And yet, our loved ones keep dying of cancer.

We spoke to cancer experts to find out why the death rate from cancer hasn't changed in the past 50 years — and we learned how genetic therapies could transform cancer treatments tomorrow.

Top image: Juan Gaertner/Shutterstock.com

Most of us have lost friends and loved ones to cancer, and we're all familiar with the inexorable logic of tumor growth and metastasis. It's a disease so horrible, it defies metaphor - people use cancer as a metaphor for the worst things in life, but there are no metaphors dreadful enough to describe cancer.

So it's hard not to get your hopes up when you hear about miraculous breakthroughs. And sure, to some extent, the news media (and press releases) tend to over-hype these encouraging developments. But still, it feels like we're constantly getting new hopes for either revolutionary cancer treatments, or a "magic bullet" to stop all cancer.

And when these hopes don't materialize, we wonder who's to blame. Did greedy drug companies hold back a promising treatment? Did an overzealous FDA kill a wonder drug? Did cancer specialists refuse to accept new ideas? Or is cancer just too smart for us?

Apparently, it's mostly the last one. Cancer is a lot smarter than we ever realized.