Certain cancers are extremely difficult to treat, and carcinomas are among the most stubborn. Unlike many other malignancies, these tumors can behave in unusual ways. Some have the ability to shift their identity, taking on characteristics of cells from entirely different organs, including skin. This shape-changing behavior makes them especially hard to target with current therapies. “The tumors are notoriously plastic in their cellular identity,” says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Christopher Vakoc. In some cases, this flexibility allows tumors to adapt and survive treatment.

New Studies Reveal Vulnerabilities in Pancreatic and Lung Cancer
Recent research from the Vakoc lab has uncovered important weaknesses in two particularly challenging carcinomas. According to Vakoc, these discoveries may “tee up targets for therapy.”

In a study published in Nature Communications, CSHL scientists identified a protein that controls whether pancreatic cancer cells keep their traditional identity or begin to resemble and behave like skin cells. In separate work reported in Cell Reports, the team determined the crystal structure of another group of proteins that is central to tuft cell lung cancer.