ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, OGPHOTO
Avri Ben-Ze’ev first came across the cell adhesion molecule L1 in his lab in 2005. The protein was initially known only for its role in brain development, where it had been linked to the migration and differentiation of nerve cells, and to helping axons find their way, but it had also turned up in cancer cells.
Ben-Ze’ev, a cancer researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and his colleagues were finding that the L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) was also a target in a signaling pathway associated with colorectal cancer. Even more unexpectedly, when the researchers tested the protein’s effects by loading up human cancer cells with a virus that made them express the L1CAM gene and injecting them into mice, the cells behaved far differently than unaltered controls. When normal cancer cells are injected, “it will form only a local tumor, but now ...
