Giving Compass' Take:

• Heidi Hall explains how understanding cancer cells as clusters, not individuals can help researchers advance their work. 

• How can funders best support ongoing cancer research? Who is already working in the space in your area? 

• Learn about funding cancer research. 

Cancer cells know how to exploit the power of drafting, letting someone else do the hard work of moving forward while you coast behind.

Building on the relatively new discovery that metastatic cancer cells leave tumors and travel in clusters, not singles, biomedical engineers learned a leader-follower behavior helps the process along.

Like geese and race car drivers, the front cell expends vastly more energy making its way forward through tissue to establish a new tumor site. When it gets tired, it moves to the back of the cluster, and a cell from behind that’s saved its energy begins leading.

The finding, which will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives a boost to the field of metabolomics, the next big thing in fighting cancer, says Cynthia Reinhart-King, professor of engineering at Vanderbilt University.

It can complement immunotherapies, which use the body’s natural defenses to kill cancer cells. So far, researchers have applied the field to slowing tumor growth, but learning about mechanisms such as the one the team found can help apply it to metastasis.

Read the full article about understanding cancer cells as clusters by Heidi Hall at Futurity.