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Cancer

Out of air is not out of action

Starving cancers of oxygen would seem to be a good way of killing them, but the presence of oxygen-deprived areas in tumours appears to correlate with poor prognosis. A molecular explanation for this has now been found.

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Figure 1: Short of oxygen.
Figure 2: How tumours cope with — and can benefit from — a lack of oxygen.

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Correspondence to Lance A. Liotta.

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Bottaro, D., Liotta, L. Out of air is not out of action. Nature 423, 593–595 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423593a

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