Nipping metastases in the bud

An EPFL / ISREC team has shed new light on how cancer metastases develop. The results they have obtained will open the door to new therapeutic options for treating late stage cancers and preventing secondary tumors from growing. The proliferation of metastases is often the main cause of complications and death from cancer. For the first time, researchers are looking very closely at the development of these metastases themselves, instead of focusing on the "primary" cancers from which they originated. In doing so, a team from the Swiss Center for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), at EPFL, was able to identify a protein that plays a major role in metastasis development, and showed that the formation of secondary cancers could be prevented by blocking this protein. Their A vital protein for metastases - The researchers already knew that cancer cells spread widely throughout the body once a malignant tumor is established. These cells don't always result in a secondary cancer, however.