Putting the brakes on blood vessel growth, or linkurl:angiogenesis,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/18318/ surrounding a tumor can boost rather than stymie tumor growth, according to two papers out this week in Nature -- complicating a long-held belief in cancer biology. "Angiogenesis is very complex event and you really have to look at multiple aspects of it" when applying the biology to treatments, linkurl:Andreas Friedl,;http://www.pathology.wisc.edu/faculty/bio.aspx?name=afriedl a cancer biologist at the University of Wisconsin who was not involved with either study, told The Scientist. "These papers show we need a much more nuanced understanding" of the protein, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Studies conducted in the lab of linkurl:Judah Folkman,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54173/ the late cancer biologist, that began in the linkurl:1970s;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4938153?ordinalpos=410&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum showed that inhibiting growth factors such as VEGF delay malignancy and cause tumors to shrink. The findings suggested that such factors help tumors flip on an angiogenic switch and that the resulting blood vessel growth is required...
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