To help avoid cancer, give them a squeeze ladies and gents :)

To revert breast cancer cells, give them the squeeze
By Sarah Yang, Media Relations | December 17, 2012

BERKELEY —
Researchers at the UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have put the squeeze — literally — on malignant mammary cells to guide them back into a normal growth pattern.


Shown are fluorescence images of uncompressed (left) and compressed (right) colonies of malignant breast epithelial cells. Compressed colonies are smaller and more organized. (Images courtesy of Fletcher Lab)
The findings, presented Monday, Dec. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco, show for the first time that mechanical forces alone can revert and stop the out-of-control growth of cancer cells. This change happens even though the genetic mutations responsible for malignancy remain, setting up a nature-versus-nurture battle in determining a cell’s fate.

“We are showing that tissue organization is sensitive to mechanical inputs from the environment at the beginning stages of growth and development,” said principal investigator Daniel Fletcher, professor of bioengineering at Berkeley and faculty scientist at the Berkeley Lab. “An early signal, in the form of compression, appears to get these malignant cells back on the right track.”

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http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/12/17/malignant-breast-cells-grow-normally-when-compressed/