There’s a reason why melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, is so aggressive. You just need to watch the cells in action.
Researchers at the University of Iowa did just that, documenting in real time and in 3-D how melanoma cells form tumors. The cells waste no time finding their cancerous cousins, slashing their way through a lab-prepared gel to quickly join other melanoma cells and form tumors.
Dr Stegall’s Comments: The communication network between cancer cells is truly impressive. We have established in other studies that cancer cells not only communicate with one another, but also with the body’s white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. This understanding is key to treating cancer, because cancer is much more than just a tumor. It is also a network of individual cancer cells which will continue to communicate – and ultimately join forces to form new tumors later – unless we disrupt that process.