More Evil Cancer Cells

So I didn't know (or maybe I kind of knew and was pretending I didn't) that some cancer cells go hide in your body to come out later as metastases. However, current research has been working on this issue.

"...researchers have discovered the conditions by which specific signals in primary tumors of head and neck and breast cancers can pre-program cancer cells to become dormant and evade chemotherapy after spreading."

How nice. Or actually how evil! I think it is pretty nasty when cancer cells hide so they can recur and try to kill you. The elude conventional treatments including chemotherapy.

However I think its pretty darn good that finally there is research going on that will help develop new ways to find these evil cells and stop them.

"Recurrence of cancer after initial treatment remains a critical unsolved problem for too many patients," said William Oh, MD, Chief, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Professor of Clinical Cancer Therapeutics at The Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "This highly innovative research provides a novel path forward for targeting dormant cancer cells which may be 'hiding' from our available therapies and which may need additional drugs to root them out and improve cure rates.”

The Little B****rds

I'm sorry I just don't have a better word for cancer cells which spread.We'll just call them the little B's. Anyway, some new research has been done on metastatic cancer cells. The goal is to find them and snuff them out, obviously.

Dr Rauscher of the Wistar Institute's cancer center recently discussed some new information discovered about breast cancer metastatic cells:

"Solid tumors such as breast cancers grow their own blood supply, a process called angiogenesis. It's clear that breast tumors shed malignant cells into the bloodstream. And it's clear that most of these cells get killed by the stress of shearing off from the primary tumor, or by the immune system. But in some patients, a tiny subset of sloughed-off cells develop the colossal powers that are required to become metastatic. At what point does that happen? "That's one of the questions we still have to answer," Rauscher said.

Recently, the ability to rapidly sequence whole genomes (the entire genetic code of a cell) has enabled scientists to analyze differences between primary tumor cells and metastatic cells. Surprisingly, Rauscher said, "there is not much genetic difference."

That finding has big implications. First, metastatic cells may not have a distinctive mutation that can be used as a neat molecular target for new drugs. Second, the important difference between primary tumor cells and metastatic cells may involve which genes are turned on and off by biochemical processes. These outside-the-gene activation processes are called "epigenetic."

Depending on the organ the metastatic cells travel to, varying genes may be activated because each organ has a different "microenvironment," controlled by distinctive cellular signals. That brings up another question: Why do certain types of metastatic cells gravitate to certain organs? Metastatic breast cells, for example, often colonize the bones first, then other vital organs. So far, Rauscher said, the explanations are unclear.

When these incredibly versatile marauders arrive at a new organ, they have the characteristics of all-powerful stem cells. That means they can go dormant for long periods, then suddenly start multiplying uncontrollably. While dormant, metastatic cells are basically invisible to the immune system, as well as impervious to chemotherapy, which works by disrupting the DNA of fast-multiplying cells.

A significant recent discovery is that metastatic cells don't travel and resettle individually. Rather, they detach from a tumor and move in clusters, the better to invade and take over a new microenvironment. It's sort of like moving a whole house, rather than just the furniture, Rauscher said.

While metastatic cells may not have a neat genetic Achilles' heel, researchers areuncovering vulnerabilities. "One therapeutic approach is to find the signals that turn dormant cells on, then block those signals," Rauscher said. "In mice, we've done this.""
So there is work in progress. If its up to the mouse stage, it is progress. But it still has a long way to go. Unfortunately.

How do you envision your cancer?

When I was in chemo, I would think of the chemo drugs as Pac Man icons going along eating up all the bad cancer cooties in my system. The cancer itself was some dark looming elephant in the room. Well not an elephant but a big looming grim reaper with the scythe running all over from the good guys.

I always thought that on a slide in the lab, they would be big and black. Always ugly, never pretty. Never able to become pretty.

It looks like I was wrong.

"A University of British Columbia professor designed and created 10 dresses inspired by microscopic lab photos of cancer cells and other body systems for a project called "Fashioning Cancer: The Correlation between Destruction and Beauty." Designer Jacqueline Firkins, an assistant professor in the university's Department of Theatre and Film, says she hopes this merger of fashion with science will help create a platform where people feel comfortable discussing "a disease we are all one step removed from.""

 

This is an '...image of astrocytes in the brain [which] work to keep neurons healthy. Green dye outlines the cells' cytoskeleton, while the red dye highlights specific membrane channels. The blue dye shows the cell nuclei. Watching the structural changes that cells undergo help scientists better understand cancer.' It also inspired this dress.

"Mercedes de la Zerda, a University of British Columbia acting student, models a black organza cap sleeve dress with a sheer top and diagonal multicolor organza trim. With this dress, Firkins says she hoped to express that cancer patients and survivors may want to hide parts of their body and showcase others. "You can see through one layer into another. You can show your skin but hide it in another way," she says."

You can see all the images here. The one which comes closest to what I envisioned are the brain tumor images.... Big and black and ugly and looming....