Nature Biotechnology volume 43, page 9 (2025) Cite this article.
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Electric fields offer new hope against aggressive brain cancer
More than a decade ago, Dr. Matthew Hebb was treating patients with Parkinson’s disease using deep brain stimulation by implanting tiny electrodes into the brain and delivering electrical signals to control tremors. He wondered if the same basic technology could be used against brain cancer.
Hebb, a neurosurgery professor at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, took tumor samples removed during surgery back to his laboratory, implanted electrodes and stimulated the cancer cells. The tumors responded.
That unexpected observation set in motion years of research into what is now called Intratumoral Modulation Therapy, or IMT—an original approach that uses low-amplitude electric fields to disrupt the growth of glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive and difficult-to-treat brain cancers.
Scientists uncover ‘hidden switch’ that helps cancer cells hide from the immune system
Researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism that helps cancer cells evade detection by the body’s immune system. The finding could pave the way for the development of more effective cancer immunotherapies.
Published in Science Immunology, the study identifies the RNA helicase DDX6 as a previously unrecognized “hidden switch” that prevents the immune system from recognizing cancer cells. Targeting DDX6 could make tumors more visible to the immune system, improving existing or new immunotherapies.
TESS discovers a rare brown dwarf orbiting a massive, aging star
For decades, astronomers lumped brown dwarfs into a single category defined by mass alone—too big to be classified as planets but too small to become stars. However, this definition ignores the two very different mechanisms that can form them: the direct collapse of gas clouds and formation within the accretion disks of massive stars.
Through a new analysis of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers led by Nino Ephremidze at Harvard University have made the clearest observation to date of a brown dwarf in orbit around a massive, aging star, potentially offering important new clues about how these planet-like bodies form. Their results have been posted to the arXiv preprint server.