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With this funding, the total external support for CCBIO’s cancer neuroscience initiative now amounts to NOK 36 million, reflecting a growing research effort centered on what CCBIO scientists increasingly describe as “nervous tumors”.

When tumors interact with nerves

Traditionally, cancer research has focused a lot on tumor cells, whereas the surrounding tissues – the tumor microenvironment (TME) – have received less attention, with components such as blood vessels, fibroblasts, and the immune system. In recent years, however, researchers have begun to understand that nerve cells are also an integral part of the TME compartment. Tumors can attract nerves, influence their growth, and respond to neural signals in ways that affect tumor behavior.

“We are beginning to understand that nerves are involved in how tumors develop and progress,” says Professor Lars A. Akslen, Director of CCBIO. “Understanding these interactions adds an important new layer to cancer biology and may help explain why some tumors behave more aggressively than others.”

This perspective forms the basis of CCBIO’s strategic focus on cancer neuroscience, which brings together cancer biology, pathology, neuroscience, and advanced tissue imaging and other technologies to study how tumor cells interact with their surrounding tissues, in particular the nerves.

Breast cancer, nerve involvement, and brain metastasis

The newly funded recruitment is directly linked to the ongoing FRIPRO project “When breast cancer hits a nerve – Neural involvement as a hallmark of tumor progression”, led by Akslen. The project investigates how nerve involvement affects both primary breast tumors and metastatic disease, with particular attention to why aggressive breast cancers often spread to the brain, the most nerve-dense microenvironment in the body.

Previous research from CCBIO and others has shown that highly innervated breast tumors are associated with more aggressive disease, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer. However, the clinical relevance of nerve involvement and the biological mechanisms behind cancer–nerve interactions remain poorly understood.

A key concept in the project is epithelial to neural transition (ENT), a proposed process in which cancer cells acquire nerve-like properties. Researchers hypothesize that this cellular plasticity may help cancer cells attract nerves at the primary tumor site, migrate more efficiently, and adapt to the brain during metastasis.

By combining large clinical cohorts, spatial omics and imaging technologies, stem cell-based experimental models, and animal studies, the project aims to uncover new mechanisms, markers, and potential therapeutic targets related to cancer–nerve interactions.

An international expert returns to Bergen

Tracy Ann Read is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, USA. After many years in leading research environments in the United States, she is now returning to the University of Bergen, where she previously completed her academic training.

Read holds a PhD in cell biology from the University of Bergen, where her doctoral work focused on experimental brain tumors and novel therapeutic strategies. Her academic training also includes graduate work in physiology, with early research on how the blood-brain barrier influences cancer cell invasion within the brain. She subsequently completed postdoctoral research in developmental neuroscience and pediatric cancers at Johns Hopkins University and Duke University.

Over more than two decades, Tracy-Ann Read has worked at the intersection of cancer biology and neuroscience, with expertise in tumor–microenvironment interactions. Her research has provided important insights into how cancer cells adapt to and exploit neural niches, including mechanisms that support tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis.

More recently, her research has focused on how cells move, adapt, and stay healthy. She has shown that proteins involved in cell movement also play an unexpected role in the cell’s energy centers, the mitochondria, revealing a close link between cell movement, energy balance, and cell health. These insights help explain how cancer cells become more invasive and are also relevant for neurological diseases such as ALS.

“Tracy‑Ann brings a combination of experience that is very strong and highly relevant for this research area,” Akslen says. “Her background in cancer biology, neuroscience, and experimental modeling aligns well with our aim to better understand how tumors interact with nerves,” he explains.

Building a new research field

Although the current project focuses on breast cancer, the implications extend far beyond a single diagnosis. Thus, nerve involvement has been linked to aggressive disease in cancers such as prostate, pancreatic, and gastric cancer.

“In the aftermath of the SFF-period of CCBIO, the field of cancer neuroscience was selected as one of the most fascinating, rapidly growing, and promising areas for continued efforts, in terms of mechanistic understanding, translation, and clinical potential, and we decided to move fast. The field is currently also one of the so-called grand challenges at the international level”, Akslen says. He continues: “Our goal is to build a strong, interdisciplinary, and competitive research environment for these studies. By understanding how tumors interact with nerves and how we might disrupt these signals, we may ultimately identify new biomarkers and strategies that can improve precision diagnosis and treatment.”

With major new funding, an established research environment, and an internationally experienced researcher returning to Bergen, CCBIO is positioning itself at the forefront of a field that may change how cancer progression is understood.

“Finally, we have been encouraged and impressed by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Cancer Society, who have clearly recognized this expanding field and supported us with significant funding. We are very grateful for this,” Akslen concludes. 

More reading

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• The Research Council of Norway’s program “.”