A UNIVERSAL law that describes the growth of animals also seems to describe the growth of tumours. Though the work is only in its early stages, researchers are already using it to explore the way cancers invade healthy tissue.
As an animal’s mass increases, so does the number of cells within it. But the blood supply that feeds those cells grows more slowly. As a result, an increasing proportion of the available nutrients go towards maintaining existing cells rather than the growth of new ones, so the rate of growth slows and ultimately comes to a halt.
Two years ago,…
