News & Comment

The World Trade Center (WTC) disaster exposed individuals to carcinogens, leading to elevated cancer rates. Responders who received care through the WTC Health Program have higher survival rates. Twenty-three years post-disaster, we summarize cancer incidence and outcome studies in this population and highlight the importance of a dedicated health programme response.

In a recent Nature paper, Ruggero and colleagues found that fasting and ketogenic diets induce metabolic rewiring through a translational mechanism involving MNK-mediated phosphorylation of eIF4E, which enhances ketogenesis. This process creates a metabolic vulnerability in pancreatic cancer that could be therapeutically exploited.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Radhika Mathur describes the development of a novel 3D whole-tumour sampling approach for glioblastoma, which can be used to elucidate tumour heterogeneity.

Pan et al. performed a large-scale, cluster-randomized controlled trial to assess whether eradicating Helicobacter pylori in asymptomatic individuals would be beneficial in preventing gastric cancer.

Cancer screening, diagnosis and care can benefit greatly from advances in artificial intelligence (AI). In this Comment, Ghassemi and Gusev discuss how AI applications must address and avoid known racial and gender biases to improve health care for all.

Inflammation is well established as a risk factor for cancer development in the gut. In this study, Fesneau et al. identify a specific immune cell population, derived from T helper 17 (T_H17) cells, that can initiate intestinal cancer.

Integrative medicine incorporated alongside cancer care, referred to as integrative oncology, is an evidence-informed field with established clinical guidelines. Although integrative oncology improves patient outcomes, it is inconsistently provided to patients. To align with best practices, it is necessary to increase awareness of integrative oncology, improve access to treatments, and provide consistent financial healthcare coverage.

In this Journal Club, Koh and Im discuss a study demonstrating the unique evolutionary trajectory of breast cancers harbouring the common driver alteration der(1;16).

In a recent study published in Nature, lactate has been identified as a key player in enhancing DNA repair mechanisms in gastric cancer by promoting lactylation of DNA repair proteins, leading to chemotherapy resistance.

Pregnancy involves immune system suppression to protect the fetus, making it a valuable model for understanding cancer immune tolerance. Recently in Cell, Yu et al. identified B7-H4 as a common immune tolerance checkpoint in both tumours and the placenta.

This poster explores rational combinations of immune checkpoint blockade of the PD1–PDL1 interaction with other therapies aimed at targeting effector T cells, innate immune and regulatory cells, the tumour microenvironment and cancer cells.

Leighow et al. develop a strategy called the dual-switch selection gene drive platform, which enables the evolutionary dynamics of acquired resistance to be manipulated for therapeutic ends.

Sex matters in metastasis, but it has received little attention in research. Here, we highlight the emerging and important roles of biological sex in metastasis and advocate for mechanistic and quantitative studies for the future development of sex-tailored therapies.

In this Journal Club, Maeng and Ku discuss a study demonstrating that profiling drug responses in patient-derived organoids can identify responders to various therapies.

Lim et al. show that ASS1, silenced in many cancer types, is a metabolic checkpoint that, following DNA damage, halts cell cycle progression by restricting nucleotide synthesis and p53-related gene transcription.

In this study, Allan Balmain and colleagues used a mouse model to monitor stem cell networks at single-cell resolution during skin carcinogenesis, revealing two cancer stem cell states, rapid cycling and plasticity, between which cells can transition to drive tumour initiation, progression and therapy resistance.

The practice of posting preprint manuscripts on servers such as bioRxiv has become increasingly common. In this Comment, Hindle and Sever explore the utility of preprints for advancing researchers careers.

The ability of prenatal cell-free DNA sequencing to incidentally detect occult maternal malignancies was first documented over a decade ago, yet coordinated follow-up of pregnant people who receive these results is still lacking in many countries. Here we provide a call to action for oncologists to become more involved in diagnosing and managing these cases.

Patient progression and response to immunotherapy are directly influenced by the presence and quality of tumour-infiltrating leukocytes (TILs). In a recent Cell publication, Wang, Zeng et al. demonstrate the functional role of circadian rhythms in altering TIL functionality and quantity, highlighting the therapeutic potential of leveraging this understanding. 

This month, Nature Reviews Cancer launches Roadmap articles, in which we ask authors to provide a sense of direction to a field to encourage new lines of thinking and experimentation, as well as opportunities for collaboration.