Cancer

Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide without control.  These cells can create their own growth signals, avoid apoptosis and immune destruction, invade neighbouring tissues, undergo metastasis and angiogenesis and alter energy metabolism.  Cancer genes are divided into oncogenes that promote cell growth, and suppressor genes that inhibit cell division and survival.  Malignant transformation can occur through the formation of novel oncogenes, the over-expression of normal oncogenes, or the disabling of suppressor genes.  Most human cancers (90–95% of cases) are due to genetic mutations from environmental factors, with the remainder caused by inherited genetic defects.

Further reading

Dang et al (2017) Drugging the 'undruggable' cancer targets. Nat. Rev. Cancer 17 502 PMID: 28643779

Karki et al (2017) Inflammasomes and Cancer. Cancer Immunol. Res. 5(2) 94 PMID: 28093447

Le Joncour and Laakkonen (2018) Seek & Destroy, use of targeting peptides for cancer detection and drug delivery. Bioorg Med Chem. 26(10):2797 PMID: 28893601

The ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium (2020) Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes Nature 578(7793) 82 PMID: 32025007

Bakare et al (2021) Biomedical Relevance of Novel Anticancer Peptides in the Sensitive Treatment of Cancer. Biomolecules 11(8) 1120 PMID: 34439786

Vadevoo et al (2023) Peptides as multifunctional players in cancer therapy. Exp Mol Med. Jun 1. doi: 10.1038/s12276-023-01016-x. Epub ahead of print PMID: 37258584

Das et al (2024) Supramolecular Systems of Peptides in Cancer JPET 388 (1) 67 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1124/jpet.123.001698

Shi et al (2024) Mechanism insights and therapeutic intervention of tumor metastasis: latest developments and perspectives. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 9(1) 192 PMID: 39090094

Li et al (2025) Invasion and metastasis in cancer: molecular insights and therapeutic targets. Sig Transduct Target Ther. 10 57 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-025-02148-4

Nussinov et al (2025) Molecular principles underlying aggressive cancers. Sig Transduct Target Ther. 10, 42 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-025-02129-7

Agarwal (2025) Cancer neuroscience: illuminating the neural dimension of tumor biology. Sci Rep 15 44406 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-31931-0