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EDITORIAL. 70% of cancer deaths are linked to the presence of metastases. To better treat them, the Curie Institute has decided to tackle their iron appetite.
By Sylvie Riou Millot.
We all know the alchemists’ dream of turning lead into gold. A Holy Grail almost achieved by recent work conducted by the European Organization for Nuclear Research at the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. But the dream of French researchers involved in cancer research is focused on other metals. Take iron and copper, for example, which stand at the heart of a pioneering study conducted at the Curie Institute in Paris by chemist Raphaël Rodriguez. Published in mid May in the journal Nature, this research could become a major turning point in the fight against a disease that causes more than ten million deaths worldwide each year.
To fully grasp the significance of this discovery, one must understand a grim reality of oncology. In seventy percent of cancer deaths, the fatal outcome is linked to the presence of metastases. These are cancer cells that originate in a primary tumor, whether in the breast, lung, colon, prostate, or pancreas, and then detach, travel through the bloodstream, and establish themselves in other organs such as the bones, liver, brain, or lungs. It is this silent migration and secondary colonization that makes cancer so deadly and so difficult to control.
Current detection methods remain insufficient to identify this migration early enough. Even when tumors are found at a treatable stage, microscopic metastatic cells may already be circulating or implanting themselves elsewhere in the body. This problem is even more severe in particularly aggressive cancers such as pancreatic cancer, which often metastasize extremely early in the course of the disease, sometimes before any symptoms appear. By the time a diagnosis is made, the disease has already gained a devastating advantage.
Encouragingly, treatment options have expanded considerably over recent decades. Physicians now have access to an impressive arsenal including conventional chemotherapy, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, antibody conjugates, and even personalized vaccines created from a patient’s own tumor cells. These strategies are being used earlier and in increasingly sophisticated combinations. Yet despite these advances, a major obstacle remains. Most of these treatments are designed to attack the primary tumor by blocking cell division or triggering immune destruction, but they often fail to eliminate the metastatic cells that have developed resistance and adapted to survive under extreme conditions.
This is where the work of the Curie Institute offers new hope. Metastatic cells possess a remarkable and dangerous trait. They display an exceptional appetite for iron. Unlike healthy cells, they are capable of absorbing and storing large quantities of this metal. Iron fuels their growth, enhances their aggressiveness, and strengthens their ability to adapt to hostile environments and conventional treatments. In other words, the very substance that helps them thrive also exposes a hidden vulnerability.
When iron accumulates excessively inside these malignant cells, it triggers a form of programmed cell death known as ferroptosis. Instead of protecting the tumor, the metal becomes toxic, generating oxidative stress that ultimately destroys the cancer cell from within. This paradox is precisely what researchers aim to exploit. By developing a compound capable of amplifying iron accumulation specifically in metastatic cells, the Curie team hopes to activate this lethal process selectively, sparing healthy tissues while eliminating the most dangerous cancer cells.
If this strategy continues to prove effective in further studies and clinical trials, it could fundamentally change how metastatic cancers are treated. Rather than merely slowing tumor growth, medicine may soon be able to directly target the very mechanism that allows metastases to survive and spread. In the long war against cancer, turning the iron hunger of malignant cells against them may become one of the most powerful weapons yet discovered.
