The Babak Lab shared on LinkedIn:
“How has our understanding of the “Hallmarks of Cancer” changed after 25 years?
In a new Cell review, Douglas Hanahan revisits one of the most influential frameworks in cancer biology. What began with six hallmarks in 2000 has evolved into a broader model describing cancer not simply as a collection of malignant cells, but as a complex and evolving biological system.
Key Insights:
- The framework now includes nine acquired functional capabilities, with phenotypic plasticity joining proliferation, immune evasion, altered metabolism, metastasis and other established hallmarks.
- Cancer is organized into four interconnected dimensions: the hallmarks themselves, enabling phenotypic characteristics, hallmark – conveying cells in the tumor microenvironment, and systemic interactions with the body.
- Five enabling characteristics help tumors acquire these capabilities, including genomic instability, epigenetic reprogramming, tumor – promoting inflammation, polymorphic microbiomes and innervation.
- The updated framework emphasizes that tumors are not simply masses of transformed cells, but complex ‘outlaw organs’ shaped by the TME and the systemic environment.
- A key therapeutic idea is hallmark co – targeting: simultaneously disrupting mechanistically distinct cancer capabilities may make adaptive resistance more difficult to develop.
Conclusion:
Twenty – five years later, the Hallmarks of Cancer framework has expanded from a relatively simple list of cancer – cell capabilities into a multidimensional view of the disease. The next challenge is translating this complexity into rational combinations that target several complementary mechanisms at once and potentially delay therapeutic resistance.
Image generated using Sora by OpenAI.
The original Cell article can be found in the comments section.”
Other articles about The Babak Lab on OncoDaily.