Human colon cancer cells with the cell nuclei stained red and the protein E-cadherin stained green. E-cadherin is a cell adhesion molecule and its loss signals a process known as the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in which cells acquire the ability to migrate and become invasive.

Thanks to improvements in screening technologies and public health outreach, more cancers are being detected early. While that’s life-saving news for many people, it does raise some important questions about the management of small, early-stage tumors. Do some tumors take a long time to smolder in their original location before they spread, or metastasize, while others track to new, distant, and dangerous sites early in their course? Read more: <a href="https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/05/22/are-some-tumors-just-born-to-be-bad/" rel="nofollow">directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/05/22/are-some-tumors-just-bor...</a>

This image is part of the NCI Cancer Close Up 2015 collection.