metastasis

Joan Massagué's team at Sloan Kettering Institute open up possibility of new cancer treatments by finding out how tumors spread

A group of scientists from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology have identified a population of oral tumour cells which may feast on fats to spread throughout the body — a process called metastasis. According to the study, published this Wednesday in the prestigious scientific magazine ‘Nature’, some of these cells expressed high levels of a molecule called CD36, which helps cells to take up lipids from their environment. The research shows that applying antibodies that block CD36 and eliminate its interaction with fatty acids resulted in a reduced number of metastatic focus and also reduced their size by around 80% to 90%. “If we cut the lipids supply to those cells which generate metastasis they are practically unable to spread”, the leader of the IRB ‘Cancer and Stem cells’ team, Salvador Aznar Benitah, explained. 

A team of oncologists led by Joan Massagué has made a breakthrough in cancer research. The team´s new study, one which lasted six years, was published on the 24^th of March in the journal ‘Cell’. The study reveals the mechanics through which cancer cells evade the immune system´s defences and remain dormant for years, only to metastasise at a later time. Cancer cells do this by imitating stem cells, releasing a certain protein inhibitor which puts them in a hibernation-like state, making them undetectable by the immune system. The study also breaks with the more widely-held view of how cancer cells metastasise, and opens new doors for cures and treatment therapies. However, the solution is not so simple, warns Joan Massagué. 

A scientific research conducted at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Centre in New-York, and directed by Catalan Oncologist Joan Massagué has shed light on the biological mechanisms used by cancer cells to metastasise in the brain. The study, published in the 27th of February issue of ‘Cell’ magazine, reveals that cancer cells which manage to form new tumours in the brain, do so by attaching themselves to capillaries and secreting special proteins to overpower the brain’s defence mechanisms. According to Dr. Massagué - recently appointed Scientific Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute for leading the way in research on metastasis and cell-growth - the study could be instrumental in preventing and treating Multiple-Organ- Metastasis.