Cancer's Long-distance Plan

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have uncovered a new role for the endocrine factor osteopontin as a 'long-distance' modulator of tumor growth. Researchers polled by SciBX felt that the findings not only opened new avenues for the design of tumor-targeting strategies but also had important implications for current surgical and therapeutic procedures aimed at tumor shrinkage.

Cancer researchers have long appreciated that cells in the immediate vicinity of tumors-the tumor microenvironment-support tumor growth and are therefore potential therapeutic targets.^1,2 However, the paper published in Cell by Robert Weinberg, professor of biology at MIT, and colleagues now suggests a potentially equally important tumor-supportive role for cells further away from a tumor...