Putting cells "on a diet" for new therapies against cancer

For years, attempts have been made to understand the mechanism behind the proliferation of cancer cells: they need metabolites to grow and proliferate as much as a vehicle needs gasoline or electricity to move. However, until now it was not known which metabolites cancer cells actually need. A team of researchers from the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR) at the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences) led by Prof. Andrea Alimonti has identified one of the mechanisms behind this process, as published in a recent article in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics.