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 stand to benefit greatly from advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Researchers, developers and deployers must ensure that applications of AI avoid known racial and gender biases to advance health care for all. Cancer screening, diagnosis and care can benefit greatly from advances in artificial intelligence (AI). In this Comment, Ghassemi and Gusev discuss how

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 (TH17) 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

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.

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.

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. 

In our Roadmap articles, 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. 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

In this Tools of the Trade article, Erin Brown describes the development of CytoSPACE, a computational tool that aligns single-cell transcriptomes and spatial transcriptomic data, and highlights its use in identifying spatially resolved cell states in the tumour microenvironment.

To establish microbiome-based screening for colorectal cancer, a study published in Nature Medicine tackled two key challenges: utilizing quantitative microbiome profiling and identifying covariates that might obscure the microbiota–colorectal cancer interactions.

Monteran et al. identified key interactions between granulocytes and T cells that promote an immunosuppressive bone microenvironment, enabling breast cancer metastasis.

Parreno et al. provide evidence for epigenetically initiated cancers in Drosophila and show that cancer develops after transient loss of Polycomb group proteins in the absence of recurrent mutations.

In this Journal Club, Lim and Jeon discuss a recent study demonstrating the utility of noninvasive genomic profiling for subtyping Hodgkin lymphomas.

Kong et al. have now shown that Knudson’s two-hit hypothesis can be circumvented through the actions of the glycolytic metabolite methylglyoxal, which transiently inactivates the tumour-suppressive functions of BRCA2 leading to episodic mutagenesis and cancer genome evolution.

In a ‘publish or perish’ culture, some scientists may resort to questionable research practices or even fraud. Scientific paper mills and artificial intelligence increasingly threaten the pursuit of truth in science. Structural changes, including heightened scrutiny of papers and authorship and better funding, are needed to ensure scientific integrity.

Two studies published concurrently in Nature report the development and preclinical activity of RMC-7977, a multi-selective inhibitor targeting the active, GTP-bound form of RAS.

The annual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting provides a platform for scientists, clinicians and other stakeholders to share the latest advances in cancer science and medicine. Here, we outline some highlights of the 2024 meeting.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Victor Tieu describes the development of MEGA, a platform that exploits the RNA-targeting capability of CRISPR–Cas13d and demonstrates its use to improve the anti-tumour activity of CAR T cells.

In this Journal Club, Oh and Kim discuss a study demonstrating the mechanisms underlying histological transformation of lung adenocarcinoma to neuroendocrine small-cell lung cancer.

Dias et al. have shown that intentional further activation of oncogenic signalling rather than its inhibition represents an alternative strategy leading to colorectal cancer cell death with tumour suppressive acquired resistance.

Targeted anticancer agents and chemotherapies exploit vulnerabilities intrinsic to cancer cells. However, evidence suggests the local tumour microenvironment (TME) can affect tumour behaviour to enhance or inhibit tumour growth. Drugs that target tumour cell vulnerabilities have been shown to also affect the TME. Understanding these effects will enable the development of drug combinations that directly

In this Tools of the Trade article, Daniel Kirschenbaum describes the development of Zman-seq and its utility for capturing dynamic changes in cellular state within single-cell RNA sequencing data.

In a recent study published in Nature, Goto et al. explore mechanisms of immune evasion in early colorectal cancers and adenomas and identify SOX17 to be crucial for immune escape through suppression of interferon-γ signalling.

In this recent study, He et al. establish that chronic stress promotes metastasis through stress-induced formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs).