When tumors spread, cancer cells migrate to other parts of the body through the blood or lymphatic vessels. Scientists have now found a new protein that prevents cancer cells from doing so by making them stick more tightly to their surroundings. Their findings could in the future help doctors determine the aggressiveness of a tumor and fine-tune the therapy.

In many mammals including humans, the placenta invades the wall of the uterus during pregnancy in the same way that cancer cells invade surrounding tissues. Using genomic sequences and gene expression information, researchers were able to predict specific signaling proteins that drive the expression of genes that decrease the susceptibility of invasion in human cells. Using a custom fabricated bio chip, the researchers confirmed that these predicted proteins did in fact decrease the invasion of both cancer and placental cells.

Researchers have developed a new protocol for monitoring acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common cancer in children, to inform more effective treatment strategies and detect disease recurrence. The personalized mediator probe PCR (MP PCR) uses multiple genomic cancer cell markers in a single assay and is simpler than current techniques. It improves monitoring clonal tumor evolution to detect a relapse sooner and avoid false negative results.

Mice are typically used as models in advanced prostate cancer research, but the profound differences between them and humans has long bedeviled the translation of findings from the animal to success in people. Dogs however are the only other animal that suffers from a significant incidence of prostate cancer, and researchers are finding them much more enlightening subjects in identification of drugs that show promise for human patients.

A new study shows inhibition of the CECR2 gene prevents triple-negative breast cancer from advancing or metastasizing.

Scientists have developed a novel cancer therapy that uses an MRI scanner to guide a magnetic seed through the brain to heat and destroy tumors.

About every second German develops cancer in the course of his or her life. That is around 510,000 new cases of cancer per year. Experts expect an increase to 600,000 by 2030. According to the Robert Koch Institute, about 1.7 million people in Germany live with a cancer that was diagnosed in the last 5 years. On World Cancer Day (February 4th), experts from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Comprehensive Cancer Center Munich, the Bavarian Cancer Society and the Felix Burda Foundation provide information on successful ways to reduce the risk of cancer.

Garden soil houses a variety of bacteria and their natural byproducts — including one that may help halt tumor growth. Lankacidins are molecules that can be isolated from Strepomyces rochei, a common bacterium in soil. In addition to antimicrobial properties, a type of lankacidins, called lankacidin C, can inhibit tumor activity in various cancer cell lines, including leukemia, melanoma, ovarian and breast cancers. Lankacidin C offers a potential foundation on which to design anticancer drugs, but its structure is complicated and difficult to manipulate, according to an international research group. The same group recently identified where antitumor activity is housed on the molecule and has now used that information to simplify lankacidin as a potential starting point to engineer treatments.

The combination of a novel blood test and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reduce overdiagnosis of low-risk cancers as well as societal costs in prostate cancer screening, according to a cost-effectiveness study.

A study has revealed a potential new way to treat secondary breast cancer that has spread to the brain, using existing drugs.

Researchers have explored the cellular changes that occur in human mammary tissue in lactating and non-lactating women, offering insight into the relationship between pregnancy, lactation, and breast cancer.

Scientists have just launched GENIGMA, a videogame that enlists players to solve puzzles while generating real-world scientific data that can detect alterations in genomic sequences and ultimately advance breast cancer research. The game was created to boost worldwide research efforts that depend on cancer cell lines, a critical resource used by scientists to study cancer and test new drugs to treat the disease. One of the limitations of cancer cell lines are a lack of high-resolution genome reference maps, which are necessary to help researchers interpret their scientific results.

A new analysis has uncovered a potential link between higher prostate cancer risk and genetic variants associated with higher bloodstream levels of the cholesterol-transporting molecule lipoprotein A.

Light therapy may accelerate the healing of skin damage from radiation therapy by up to 50%, according to a recent study.

Scientists have developed a new tool to harness immune cells from tumors to fight cancer rapidly and effectively.

Hyaluronic acid, or HA, is a known presence in pancreatic tumors, but a new study shows that hyaluronic acid also acts as food to the cancer cells. These findings provide insight into how pancreatic cancer cells grow and indicate new possibilities to treat them.

The most dangerous side effect of allogeneic blood stem cell transplantation, graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), has still not been sufficiently researched. The world’s largest blood stem cell donor center DKMS wants to change that – it is the declared goal of the non-profit organization to improve the survival and healing chances of blood cancer patients. In the fight against GvHD, DKMS research teams have now launched two new scientific studies.

Recent discoveries by stem cell scientists may help make cancer treatment more efficient and shorten the time it takes for people to recover from radiation and chemotherapy.

Faulty versions of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are well known to increase the risk of breast cancer in men and women, and in ovarian cancer. Now BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been linked to several other cancers, including those that affect men.

A moderate amount of a peptide-enhanced cancer drug goes a long way in treating breast cancers that metastasize to the bone.

New research shows that specific enzymes can remove lactic acid marks. This finding may increase our understanding of cancer medicine and how physical exercise, among other things, can affect human epigenetics.

An investigational cancer drug that starves tumors of their energy supply also shows evidence of improving whole body metabolism, leading to improved weight control, according to a new study in mice.

A study has found that patients with cancer who receive chemotherapy — and some targeted therapies, such as CDK4/6 inhibitors and therapies targeted at B cells — may mount an inadequate immune response to COVID-19 vaccination.

Faulty DNA damage repair can lead to many types of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and other serious disorders. Investigators have developed high-throughput microscopy and machine learning systems that can identify and classify DNA repair factors. The investigators have identified nine previously unknown factors involved in the process of cellular DNA repair.

Immunotherapy given before surgery caused liver cancer tumors to die off in one-third of the patients enrolled in a new clinical trial.