• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Most Detailed 3D Tumor Atlases Reveal Immune “Hot Zones” And Cancer “Neighborhoods”

October 30, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

In a new package of 12 detailed papers, scientists have unveiled 3D “blueprints” of multiple different tumor types, giving researchers a close look at how cancers develop and progress.

“These 3D maps of tumors are important because they finally let us see what, until now, we have only been able to infer about tumor structures and their complexity,” said Dr Li Ding of Washington University School of Medicine, who co-led some of the research, in a statement. 

Advertisement

The collection of papers forms the latest release from the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN). Since 2018, the network’s research centers and central Data Coordinating Center have been collaborating to produce these 3D atlases for a diverse range of human cancer types, with the hope that a more detailed understanding of the disease will help pave the way for new and better treatments.

Importantly, the HTAN includes a focus on tumor types that primarily affect minority groups, inherited tumors, and aggressive childhood cancers. 

The level of detail afforded by these 3D atlases removes all the guesswork – rather than having to predict how tumors function and interact with their environments, scientists can actually see things happening. 

“We understood that cancer cells, immune cells and structural cells were all present in the tumor, sometimes protecting the cancer from chemotherapy and immune system attack, but now we can actually see those battle lines,” Ding explained. “We now have the ability to see how regions of the tumor differ in 3D space and how the behavior changes in response to therapy or when the tumor spreads to other organs.”

Advertisement



The papers comprise analyses of more than 20 different tumor types from almost 2,000 people, including breast, colon, pancreatic, kidney, and uterine cancer. A number of new discoveries and advances are reported.

One of the studies found evidence that many colorectal cancers – one of a number of cancer types that are currently on the rise in younger adults – originate from multiple cells rather than a single mutant cell. “These findings provide insights into opportunities for earlier intervention in colorectal cancer,” the authors write. 

Another, co-led by Ding and Professor William E. Gillanders, detailed new insights into the different cellular profiles that characterize basal and luminal breast cancer tumors, which could lead to new specific drug targets for each cancer type. 

Advertisement

There was also a study of a rare genetic disease called familial adenomatous polyposis, which is associated with an almost 100 percent lifetime risk of bowel cancer if not treated – people with the condition often have their entire colon removed in preventative surgery. The comprehensive analysis the researchers performed could not only help explain how cancers arise in these individuals, but could help inform future research into sporadic bowel cancers too.  

Other research that Ding and colleagues at WashU Medicine were involved in revealed that tumors can be divided into multiple “neighborhoods”, with different metabolic profiles in different zones and different genetic mutations driving growth. Co-author Dr Ryan C. Fields described these findings as “transformative”.

“This understanding of 3D cancer metabolism will affect how our current treatments work, and sometimes don’t work, and will lead to development of novel treatments in cancer,” said Fields. 

In addition, there was new evidence about how an individual tumor may contain both “hot” and “cold” regions, where immune activity is high or low, respectively. Knowing this can help scientists develop treatment strategies that can target both areas of a tumor at the same time.

Advertisement

“We have never been able to talk this way about tumors before – being able to see that immune cells are present in the tumor, suggesting opportunities to exploit them for treatments,” Ding said.

Like other similar projects that have released stunning results recently, such as the cell atlases of the human brain and ovary, these tumor atlases are tools that will continue to inform and assist cutting-edge cancer research for many years to come. 

Ding said, “These studies have opened a new era in cancer research with the potential to transform the way we understand and treat cancer in the future.”

The papers are published in several journals within the Nature Portfolio. The whole collection can be found here. 

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: Most Detailed 3D Tumor Atlases Reveal Immune “Hot Zones” And Cancer “Neighborhoods”

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • A Spinning Island Lake In Argentina Looms Out Of The Swamps Like An Eyeball
  • Mammals Have Evolved Into Ant Eaters 12 Times Since The Dinosaurs Went Extinct
  • Thieving Pulsar Spinning 592 Times A Second Reveals New Understanding Of Where Its X-Rays Come From
  • The Rise And Fall (And Lamentable Rise) Of The “Alpha Male” Myth
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: How Do Black Holes Shape The Universe?
  • North America’s Smallest Turtle Is The Cutest Thing You’ll Find In A Bog
  • “Unambiguous Signal” To Curb Emissions Now: Long-Lost Aerial Photos Reveal Evolution Of Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse
  • 8 Children Have Been Born With 3 Biological Parents Each After Mitochondrial Transfer
  • First Known Observations Of Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry In Special Particle Decay
  • In 1973, NASA Sent Two Spiders Into Space To See If They Can Spin Webs – And They Learnt A Lot
  • Meet The Many Species Of Freaky Looking “Assassin Spiders” That Only Eat Other Spiders
  • Your Dog’s TV Preferences Might Reveal Their Personality
  • Some Human Gut Bacteria Can Absorb Harmful Toxic “Forever Chemicals” So They Can Be Pooped Out
  • You Could Float Through 10 Countries Before The World’s Most International River Spat You Out
  • Enormous Coronal Hole And Beast-Like Crawling Prominences Dazzle On The Active Sun
  • Dramatic Drone Footage Of Iceland’s Latest Volcanic Eruption Shows An Epic Scene From Hell
  • A Shrimp That Lives In A Tree? Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains Are Home To Some Seriously Strange Wildlife
  • Is NASA’s Claim That Saturn Could Float On Water Really True?
  • Pangea Proxima: This Is What Planet Earth May Look Like 250 Million Years In The Future
  • The Story Of Dogxim, The Fox-Dog Hybrid That Shouldn’t Have Existed
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version