If you ever wondered what is cancer and what are the hallmarks of cancer, this is an opportunity for you to learn more about it. Milica Glušac, a mentee in the Mentorship program “Mreža mozgova 2.0” presented her paper on Hallmarks of cancer as a final project of the mentorship process. Development of this paper was supervised by Anđela Kovačević, our member and a Medical Biotechnology student at La Sapienza University of Rome.

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In the last two decades, scientists have come in the possession of remarkably diverse data about cancer. There are more than 100 types of cancer that have been acknowledged by now, typically named after its location in the body (specific organ – lung cancer) or after the cell type that they originate from (specific cell – lymphoma which begins in T or B lymphocytes).

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However, the progress made in the 21st century is greater than the entire progress that has been made in the foregoing centuries. The ground-breaking discovery of six hallmarks of cancer holds the ability to significantly influence the direction of progress when it comes to the advancement of strategic cancer therapies. By gaining complete clarity of mechanisms which guide cancer, effective treatment for the disease will be possible. Hence, the surveillance of oncological disorders is advanced and persistent, therefore new traits are being discovered and our knowledge is expanding. Novel discoveries are looking into the development of genomic instability and mutation in cancer cells, inflammatory state of tumor initiated by the immune
system, reprogramming of cellular energy metabolism and evasion of the impact of immune cells. Accordingly, scientists predict new anticancer drugs which possess the ability to target specific hallmark capability and therefore prevent further progression of cancer or cure already existing cancer.

Analogous to cancer cells stubbornly working on discovering distinct methods to survive and grow, scientists work on uncovering those methods and putting an end to them with an effective diagnosis and therapy which is expected to be basic science in the future.

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The full paper is available on the following link: Hallmarks of cancer