Melanoma Visualized in Live Zebrafish From Origin of First Cancer Cell To Metastasis

Source: Oncology Nurse Advisor, February 2016

Researchers visualized the origins of cancer from the first affected cell through its spread in a live animal: the zebrafish. This research, published in Science, may change scientific understanding of melanoma and other cancers leading to new treatments that can be administered early, before the cancer has taken hold.

“An important mystery has been why some cells in the body already have mutations seen in cancer, but do not yet fully behave like the cancer," explained Charles Kaufman, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Zon Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts, and first author of the paper. “We found that the beginning of cancer occurs after activation of an oncogene or loss of a tumor suppressor, and involves a change that takes a single cell back to a stem cell state."