News & Comment

Cancer biology is the cornerstone on which much of modern cancer research is based. Continuing to explore the intricacies of this multilayered foundational scientific area is essential.

What does the explosion of generative artificial intelligence tools mean for science?

Authorship on a paper gives credit where it is due, but it also comes with responsibilities. Here we discuss our policies and offer advice on best practice.

Three years after the pandemic began, COVID-19 is here to stay. Yet the effects of COVID-19 on cancer research are still unravelling.

Our ‘2022 in Review’ Focus highlights the year’s key developments in the cancer field in news articles, specially commissioned comment and opinion pieces, and an overview of the year’s most striking cancer research curated by the Nature Cancer editorial team.

Antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) were first developed in the 1980s, and since then, technical advances have allowed their approval by the US Food and Drug Administration and their use in the treatment of various cancers. In 2022, several new ADCs were developed and tested in clinical trials, with promising results.

Liquid biopsies of circulating tumor DNA offer a non-invasive tool with many potential applications in oncology, including early cancer detection, profiling, disease prognosis, prediction of therapy response and monitoring disease status. A growing body of literature and clinical trials support an increasingly valuable role for liquid biopsies in the care of patients with solid malignancies.

Recent progress indicates a considerably improved mechanistic understanding of CAR T cell biology and delivers important insights into why some patients achieve durable remissions and others do not. In addition, although most success has been achieved in the context of CAR T cells targeted to B cell tumor antigens, namely CD19 and BCMA, we are seeing promising clinical trial outcomes for solid tumor malignancies.