Cancer also knows how to wait: Study uncovers the hidden step between mutation and tumor biomass appearance

The development of cancer is not a process triggered immediately by the emergence of an oncogenic mutation.

There is growing evidence for the existence of an intermediate phase—hitherto poorly defined—in which mutated cells remain in a latent state, "accumulating the potential needed to grow, like a biological time bomb," explains Antonio Gentilella, a professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences at the University of Barcelona and head of the Cancer Metabolism Research Group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), part of the Bellvitge Campus. ...