- Two recent studies found that fungi grow inside some tumors in people with different cancer types. Each cancer type was associated with its own unique collection of fungal species; some of them harmless and some that can cause diseases. In addition to fungi, particular bacteria were present within the tumor, but possible interactions between them are not yet understood. Both studies, one published by a group of Israeli and U.S. researchers and another one by a group of U.S. researchers, were published in the same issue of Cell.
- Another research conducted in Israel targeted glioblastoma, the deadly brain cancer. In an animal study, they used a unique approach to eradicate the astrocytes (brain cells) around the tumor, which caused cancer to disappear. The study was published in Brain.
- New research undertaken at the University of California at Berkeley suggested that in people over 50 years old, genetics played a lesser role than in younger people in the development of age-related diseases such as cancer. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
- A team of U.K. and U.S. researchers made a surprising discovery by identifying a protein, called NALCN, that regulated not only how cancer metastasized but also normal cells travel around the body. The discovery paves the way to a potential new target for antimetastatic therapies. The study was published in Nature Genetics.