Cancer often isn’t detected until it has progressed to late stages, making it difficult to treat. With the goal of improving cancer prevention, SPH associate professor Betsy Wattenberg is working to understand the very earliest stages of the disease—namely what happens to cells when cancer strikes.
In her lab, Wattenberg and colleagues are studying the changes in cells that lead to cancer. Cells are normally highly regulated and in constant communication with each other through a network of “switches.” When cancer develops, that high level of communication is disrupted and switches within the cells are turned permanently on or off.
