cancer

Researchers at Tokyo Women's Medical University have found that tumor cells don't just wander randomly around the body when they go malignant. They are called to a particular spot by chemical messengers in the target organ. Those messengers also call macrophages (white blood cells that eat invaders), so something decidedly weird is going on here. Block the messenger chemicals (some S100 proteins) and the tumor cells don't go a-wandering. Of course you can't just go willy-nilly blocking a signal that warns anti-infection white blood cells of potential danger. You'd be prey to many other dangers. But this is a really useful bit of info. If we can find out why the tumor cells are attracted by these messengers we may be able to fine tune it somehow -- make the tumor cells deaf, but not the phagocytes.

What a cool time we live in.

Additional: it just occurred to me that this attraction tumor cells have for these chemical messengers could be exploited. Some people have recurring malignancies which are removed, only to regrow, apparently from nowhere. It seems, in light of this new knowledge that cutting them out is about as effective as, in John Lennon's words, digging a hole in the ocean. New malignant cells simply come in to replace those cut out. It might be possible to attract the tumor cells to a different site where they could be culled without harm to the patient... kinda like setting a baited mousetrap.