Sharma et al. discovered that bone marrow osteolineage cells are producers of taurine in the leukaemia niche, which in turn drives leukaemia stem cell survival and self-renewal.

Yang et al. developed a proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) 753b, which targets BCL-xL and BCL-2 to the E3 ubiquitin ligase VHL, and showed that it removed senescent cells specifically from the liver, reducing the progression of chronic metabolic liver disease to liver cancer.

Fu et al. provide data indicating a pathogenic role for Streptococcus anginosus in gastric cancer.

Leighow et al. develop a strategy called the dual-switch selection gene drive platform, which enables the evolutionary dynamics of acquired resistance to be manipulated for therapeutic ends.

Kong et al. have now shown that Knudson’s two-hit hypothesis can be circumvented through the actions of the glycolytic metabolite methylglyoxal, which transiently inactivates the tumour-suppressive functions of BRCA2 leading to episodic mutagenesis and cancer genome evolution.

Girish et al. designed a method to genetically remove extra chromosomes from human aneuploid cancer cells to show that they are important for malignant growth and not just a bystander.

Han et al. employed an in vivo imaging workflow that coupled positron emission tomography imaging to micro-computed tomography and 3D serial block-face electron microscopy to produce a detailed structural and functional map of mitochondrial networks in lung cancer.

Bland et al. show that cancer types with heterozygous somatic hotspot mutations in the spliceosome component SF3B1 are vulnerable to PARP inhibition, which causes a defective response to replication stress.

Chen et al. show that gliomagenesis in the olfactory bulb of the brain is directly related to olfactory perception in mice.

Nolan et al. used a mouse model of acute radiation exposure to reveal that radiotherapy can create a pro-metastatic lung microenvironment, an effect mediated by neutrophils.

Vincze et al. have provided definitive evidence for the validity of Peto’s paradox by analysing cancer incidence in the largest study of mammal species to date.

Chen et al. have developed a preclinical platform that enables the reprogramming of locoregional macrophages and microglia in situ with CD133-directed chimeric antigen receptors, which leads to the phagocytosis and removal of residual glioma stem cells after tumour debulking.

Guo et al. have developed a novel strategy, which involves coating tumour cells with silica, to enable personalized cancer vaccines to overcome the immunosuppressive effects of the tumour microenvironment.

Venkataramani et al. used longitudinal intravital two-photon imaging to track migrating glioblastoma cells in vivo, and identified a seemingly unconnected cell subpopulation that was responsible for colonization of the brain by mimicking neuronal mechanisms of movement.

Diamantopoulou et al. have found that in both mouse models and patients with breast cancer, the timing of spontaneous circulating tumour cell production coincides with sleep.

Crist et al. set out to investigate what makes the colonization of skeletal muscle by disseminated tumour cells (DTCs) so rare and found that this niche enforces persistent oxidative stress on DTCs that cannot be overcome and therefore, restrains their proliferation.

This study demonstrates that commensal bacteria and fungi have opposing roles in the responses of tumours to radiotherapy.

Haas et al. show that acquired resistance to a targeted therapy can result in cross-resistance to immunotherapy through the induction of an immune-evasive microenvironment.

Schneider et al. show that peripheral serotonin augments colorectal and pancreatic tumour growth in mice by increasing PDL1 expression on cancer cells, and in turn inhibiting the accumulation of functional CD8+ T cells within tumours.