Researchers find key for transforming cancer cells to muscle in rhabdomyosarcoma

For six years, Professor Christopher Vakoc’s lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been on a mission to transform sarcoma cells into regularly functioning tissue cells. Sarcomas are cancers that form in connective tissues such as muscle. Treatment often involves chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation—procedures that are especially tough on kids. If doctors could transform cancer cells into healthy cells, it would offer patients a whole new treatment option—one that could spare them and their families a great deal of pain and suffering.