A study links the loss of DNA methylation across the genome—as is common in cancer—to the disruption of the 3-D compartments that organize the genome and to the timing of DNA replication.

Shoring up the tissues that separate neurons and other brain cells from the circulatory system in fruit flies and mice can prolong life in the presence of a tumor.

Sergii Mirnyi, one of the people who helped clean up after the 1986 disaster, says he founded Chornobyl University to promote much-needed interdisciplinary research on the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Depleting intestinal fungi allows radiation to effectively fight cancer, likely because the microbes influence the antitumor immune response.

Targeted cancer therapy may jeopardize the effectiveness of subsequent immunotherapy by reducing dendritic cell numbers and activation, according to study of mice and patient samples.

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.