Detailed maps that pinpoint the positions of cells in tumours and probe the tumours' biology are offering insights into the development of several cancers ' including in the breast, colon and pancreas ' and could provide leads for potential treatments. In a tranche of 12 papers published in Nature journals on 30 October, researchers of the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) analysed hundreds of thousands of cells from human and animal tissues. Some of the studies describe 3D maps of the cells ' known as cell atlases ' in tumours, whereas others create 'molecular clocks' that trace the cellular changes that lead to cancer. 'Applying these novel tools to cancer allow us to look at them with a different lens,' says Ken Lau, a computational cell biologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and co-author of a study that records the timing of cellular events in the development of colorectal cancer1. 'We can actually see things that we couldn't see before.' In...
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