New cancer-fighting strategy would harden cells to prevent metastasis

(Johns Hopkins Medicine) Existing cancer therapies are geared toward massacring tumor cells, but Johns Hopkins researchers propose a different strategy: subtly hardening cancer cells to prevent them from invading new areas of the body. They devised a way of screening compounds for the desired effect and have identified a compound that shows promise in fighting pancreatic cancer. Their study appears this week in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.