Learn: Hallmarks of Cancer: Key Mechanisms of Tumor Progression

Sustaining growth signals

Cancer cells keep telling themselves to grow and divide, ignoring normal controls.

Evading growth suppressors

Cancer cells ignore the body's normal 'stop' signals that tell them to halt division.

Resisting cell death

Cancer cells avoid natural programmed cell death (apoptosis) when they are damaged.

Enabling replicative immortality

Cancer cells bypass limits on cell division and can copy themselves forever.

Inducing angiogenesis

Tumors force the body to grow new blood vessels to supply them with oxygen and food.

Activating invasion and metastasis

Cancer cells break away from their original tissue, travel through the body, and start new tumors elsewhere.