After controlling for high levels of bacterial contamination in their lab and reagents, researchers detect microbial genetic material in plasma samples from healthy people and cancer patients.

Moderna’s, Pfizer’s, and Johnson & Johnson’s shots all offered protection against the virus regardless of cancer type, although slightly less so in people with blood cancer.

Researchers say evidence of hybridization between leukocytes and cancer indicates that this is a primary means of metastasis. Others disagree.

In the largest effort to date to standardize performance metrics of the cancer diagnostic across products, researchers say the products can likely detect advanced tumors reliably, but early-stage malignancies would remain a challenge.

Tumor cells missing a critical protein enter neighboring cells to sap their nutrients, then exit those hosts as intact cells, possibly primed to metastasize. Other scholars say it’s too early to know this for sure.

The genomes of the children of people exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident appear to carry no trace of the incident.

The continuous network of fluid-filled compartments crosses organ barriers and might serve as a conduit for tumor cells to spread.

In the last decade, researchers have come to realize that tumors harbor bits of extrachromosomal DNA that can drive malignancy.

Meet some of the people featured in the April 2021 issue of The Scientist.

A mutant protein called Siglec-XII may promote carcinoma progression in humans, but inactivation of its gene seems to avoid the problem, according to a study.

It’s now thought that in many cases, cancer cells disseminate from the primary tumor site early on and lay dormant for long periods rather than only venturing out from primary tumors at an advanced stage.

Recent insights, such as the recognition that disseminated cancer cells can lie dormant for years before seeding secondary tumors, suggest novel strategies for fighting metastatic disease.

From his student days in veterinary medicine in Ethiopia to running a lab on metastasis at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Debeb has a passion for understanding how living things work.

Researchers are uncovering how circular bits of DNA found in some cancer cells can help tumors evolve and kill.

Researchers turned white blood cells called neutrophils into drug-smuggling “neutrobots,” which penetrated the blood-brain barrier to treat brain cancer in mice.

Following on the success of CAR T cells used to treat cancers of the blood, researchers have launched a Phase 1 clinical trial of genetically modified macrophages to target solid tumors.

The cancer researcher and executive vice president of AstraZeneca’s oncology research and development is well known for his role in the development of pivotal breast cancer therapies.

Clinical trials were halted after the treatment’s vector that ferries in the healthy genetic sequence was identified in the genome of a patient’s cancer cells.

A trio of papers shows that specialized antibodies can direct T cells to destroy cells that display portions of mutant cancer-related proteins, as well as T cells that have become cancerous themselves.