metastasis

"But once it's been forced to wrestle with the immune system and come up with mechanisms to overcome it, tumors with high germline epitope burden are more aggressive and prone to metastasis. The pattern flips during tumor progression."

Zarif plans to collaborate with colleagues at Johns Hopkins to launch a clinical trial of JHU083 in patients with treatment-resistant prostate or bladder cancer to see if it shrinks tumors and prevents metastasis.

Administering the nanoparticles systemically improved survival rates and inhibited metastasis across various cancer types.

"Even if you perform surgery to remove the tumors, no surgery is perfect and there is outgrowth of metastasis if no additional treatment is provided," said Steinmetz.

"This further indicates that the ability of the cells to pull on each other and hold themselves clustered together becomes weaker as the tumor grows, potentially increasing metastasis risk."