Breast cancer cells, when disseminated to other secondary organs such as the lungs, may stay in a dormant state for years, even decades. But the mechanisms that limit their expansion are not well understood. This is what researchers call a dormant mesenchymal-like phenotype (M-like) before metastasis to the lungs. Now, scientists have shown in a study published Oct. 7, 2024, in Cell, that the limiting of disseminated breast cancer cells (DCCs) to metastasize in the lungs is due to alveolar macrophages (AMs), which activate signals that make DCCs stay dormant.

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their contributions to the science of protein structure. David Baker was awarded half the prize “for computational protein design,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hassabis and Jumper shared the other half “for protein structure prediction.”

Research into the regulation of gene expression experienced a significant breakthrough with the discovery of microRNA, small RNA molecules that do not code for proteins but control their translation. This finding has earned its discoverers – Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun – the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.”

The E4 variant of the APO gene, the R47H variant of the TREM2 gene, and female sex are three of the strongest risk factors for the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). By combining all three of them in a mouse model of tauopathy, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical School have identified microglial inflammation and senescence as processes that occurred more strongly in female mice as tauopathy developed.

By looking at the electrical activity of tumor cells, rather than the neurons that innervate them, investigators at Baylor College of Medicine have added both basic and translational insights to the emerging field of cancer neuroscience. In their studies, which were published in Cancer Cell on Sept. 5, 2024, the researchers identified the cell of origin for IDH-mutated gliomas.

Immunotherapy based on T cells is the vanguard of cancer treatments. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have shown that similar approaches using T cells could be applied for treating injuries of the central nervous system (CNS). They reported their findings in Nature on Sept. 4, 2024.

Since the publication of The Hallmarks of Aging in 2013, aging research has exploded. The field now has more than 300,000 articles on the biological signals of the effect of time on the body. What would Marty McFly, the legendary character from the Back to the Future saga who traveled with his DeLorean time machine from the ‘80s to the ‘50s, think if he visited 2024 and saw laboratories experimenting with techniques to turn back the biological clocks of cells or increase the lifespan of rejuvenated mice?