Researchers in China have discovered that bacteria promote cancer metastasis by bolstering the strength of host cells against mechanical stress in the bloodstream, promoting cell survival during tumor progression.

“In 2015, when I started in this field…. people considered breast cancer a cold tumor,” Marleen Kok told the audience at the European Society of Medical Oncology’s 2022 Targeted Anticancer Therapy meeting (ESMO TAT). But the sensitivity of breast cancer to immunotherapy, or lack thereof, is “not a black and white phenomenon.”

Investigators at KU Leuven have discovered that although mTOR signaling was important in primary breast tumors and lung metastases alike, the signals that activated mTOR were different between the two, and mTOR signaling could be inhibited through different mechanisms.

Researchers working at the Jackson Laboratory Cancer Center reported in the September 21, 2020, issue of Nature Immunology that breast cancer cells induced neutrophils to accumulate lipids, which were transported to metastatic tumor cells through a macropinocytosis pathway, thus fueling the metastatic potential of tumor cells with lipids.

The European Society for Medical Oncology is slanted toward clinical medicine, and plenary sessions at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 featured phase III trials on approved drugs. But there were smaller sessions devoted to basic science as well. At one of those sessions, several researchers shared new insights into metastasis.

Investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College have demonstrated that mitochondrial DNA drives the abscopal antitumor response to radiation, which can be boosted by autophagy inhibition.

The abscopal response is an immune-based antitumor response to distant metastases after selective irradiation of the primary tumor.

The three founders of newly launched Volastra Therapeutics Inc. had plenty in common when they decided to create the company. Their offices happened to be a half block apart on 69th Street in midtown Manhattan. Their interests in oncology were similar but each approached the disease from different angles.