Location, location, location goes the old real estate proverb but cancer also responds to its neighborhood, particularly in the physical surroundings of bone marrow cells where human myeloid leukemias arise and where, according to two Harvard bioengineers, stiffness in the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) can predict how cancer subtypes react to chemotherapy. Correcting for the matrix effect could give oncologists a new tool for matching drugs to patients, the researchers say.
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