Scientists find better way to defeat cancer

Scientists believe the humans have a better chance of tackling cancer by knowing what tumour cells are saying to one another and then cutting off communications.

Cancer is usually presented as a problem of cells becoming mindless replicators, proliferating without purpose or restraint. But that image underestimates the foe,BBC Future reports, citing a new paper. The authors argue that the human beings will stand a better chance of combating the disease if they recognise that tumour cells are a lot smarter and function like a co-operating community.

One of the authors, physicist Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University in Israel, has argued for some time that many single-celled organisms, whether they are tumour cells or gut bacteria, show a rudimentary form of social intelligence – an ability to act collectively in ways that adapt to the prevailing conditions, learn from experience and solve problems, all with the “aim” of improving their chances of survival. He even believes there is evidence that they can modify their own genomes in beneficial ways.

Some of these ideas are said to be controversial, but others are undeniable. One of the classic examples of a single-celled co-operator, the soil-dwelling slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum, survives a lack of warmth or moisture by sending out pulses of a chemical from cells, which attracts other cells to move towards them and clump together into multi-celled bodies that look like weird mushrooms. Some of these cells become spores, entering into a kind of suspended animation until conditions improve.

Many bacteria can engage in similar feats of communication and coordination, which can produce complex colony shapes such as vortex-like circulating blobs or exotic branching patterns. These displays of “social intelligence” help the colonies survive adversity, sometimes to our cost. Biofilms, for example – robust, slimy surface coatings that harbour bacteria and can spread infection in hospitals – are manufactured through the co-operation of several different species.