A major piece of the mystery surrounding cancer has been found: a scientist has discovered a protein that initiates the process that causes cancer to spread from the original tumor to other parts of the body. The report appears in Nature Cell Biology.

The process that releases cancer cells from their original tumor and allows them to spread throughout the body is called epithelial-mesenchymal transdifferentiation (EMT). The spread and development of the cancer cells into new tumors in other sites in the body is known as metastasis.