A GENERAL besieging a city will often cut off its food supply and wait, rather than risking a direct assault. Many doctors dream of taking a similar approach to cancer. Tumours, being rapidly growing tissues, need more food than healthy cells do. Cutting this off thus sounds like a good way to kill the out-of-control cells. But, while logical in theory, this approach has proved challenging in practice—not least because starvation harms patients, too.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Fast thinking”
From the July 16th 2016 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents