Transforming lung cancer types. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38330129/)

These scientists wanted to understand why some lung cancer cells are able to survive even when we try to treat them with targeted therapy. They knew that lung cancer cells can change their behavior and become resistant to the treatment. So, they decided to study how these cells do this.

First, the scientists collected lung cancer cells in a lab. They then treated these cells with a specific therapy that is designed to kill them. They noticed that some of the cells were able to survive this treatment, which was not good news for us.

To figure out why this happened, the scientists looked closely at these surviving cells. They found that these cells had changed their behavior by switching something called "oncogenic drivers" and "cell identity." This means that the cells had changed the way they work and who they are.

The scientists wanted to understand how these changes helped the cells survive the treatment. So, they did more experiments. They tried to find out which specific changes in the cells were responsible for their survival.

By doing these experiments, the scientists were able to learn more about how lung cancer cells can escape targeted therapy. This knowledge will help them develop better treatments in the future, so that we can fight against lung cancer more effectively.

Berns A. Transforming lung cancer types. Science. 2024 Feb 9;383(6683):590-591. doi: 10.1126/science.adn5218. Epub 2024 Feb 8.