AN insidious type of brain tumour cuts a swathe through the brain by
secreting a compound that makes healthy neurons self-destruct. The discovery
could lead to treatments to combat this normally fatal disease.
Gliomas are among the deadliest of all cancers. In the US, most of the 20,000
people diagnosed annually die within 18 months. “It’s a field people didn’t
study too much because it was regarded as hopeless,” says Maiken Nedergaard, a
cell biologist at New York Medical College in Valhalla.
To make room for themselves to grow, gliomas opt to destroy the healthy
tissue around them. But…
