A new way of looking at cancer

Clusters of circulating cells commonly found in the blood of cancer patients have long been the subject of research on cancer. These clusters have been regarded for more than 50 years as malignant cells that have broken off from the primary tumor, spreading cancer to other parts of the body. Now, researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR have reported that these clusters are unlike what others have assumed previously, potentially opening up new ways to detect and inhibit the spread of cancer.