Professor Douglas Hanahan discusses how cancer cells require a source of nutrients and oxygen, which is supplied through new blood vessel growth – the process of angiogenesis, which is critical for almost all cancers.

In 2000, Douglas Hanahan (shown below) and Robert Weinberg published a paper in Cell, "The Hallmarks of Cancer," which identified some organizing principles of cancer cell development. “As a cell, you need oxygen to breathe, the same way that the organism does. That dividing nest of cells will in some sense suffocate from lack of nutrients and oxygen and from their own waste unless they have a blood supply. It is now clear that induction and new blood vessel growth – the process of angiogenesis – is critical for almost all cancers, some less than others. Perhaps the leukemias and the blood-borne ones are less angiogenesis-dependent, but it may be that all cancers, in some sense, activate the vascular system to help support it.”

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