Research Reveals How Cancerous Tumors Spread to Other Body Parts

A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has discovered how cancer cells control the ON/OFF switch of a program used by developing embryos to effectively metastasize in vivo, breaking free and spreading to other parts of the body, where they can proliferate and grow into secondary tumors. The findings appear in the December 11 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.

In 90 percent of cancer deaths, it is the spreading of cancer, known as metastasis, that ultimately kills the patient by impacting ever-more tissues and functions until the body fails. Ten years ago, a French cancer researcher named Jean Paul Thiery, PhD, hypothesized that tumor cells metastasized by exploiting a developmental process known as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition or EMT. For more information, click here to read the full release.