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The brain controls the body, in large part, through nerves. So, what happens when nerves form new connections with tumors? How does the nervous system drive cancer progression? How do these interactions influence anti-cancer therapies? A burgeoning new field known as cancer neuroscience aims to answer these questions. But how? How does one solve a problem when the techniques for investigating that problem haven’t yet been established? How can today’s cancer neuroscientists formalize their new knowledge so that it can be shared with others in and around the field?

“In 2023 or ’24, we started to get the feeling that this new field was really starting to expand,” ���ϳԹ���Դ (CSHL) Assistant Professor Jeremy Borniger says. “We quickly realized that we needed a place to teach each other the techniques we were using in our individual research. �䳧�᳢’s has a long history of being on the cutting edge of science education. So it was a natural fit.”

�䳧�᳢’s is the burgeoning field’s first-ever hands-on course. Borniger, a pioneer in the field, is one of four instructors running the course. Joining him are Moran Amit from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Ece Eksi from Oregon Health and Science University, and Paola Vermeer from the University of South Dakota and Sanford Research.

“Going back five to seven years, the field did not exist yet. There aren’t any formal degree programs yet,” Amit says. “So, it’s great seeing how excited people are to come here and make the effort to learn.”

The intense two-week course offers training in a wide variety of techniques. A typical morning may include learning how to use multielectrode arrays to measure voltage changes of individual neurons in a dish. Later that same day, students might practice new methods for measuring neural activity in mice. The goal is that, by the end of the course, each attendee will have experience studying the influence of nerves on cancer from the organism level down to the cellular.

“I’ve learned so much already,” says Cecilia Pazzi, a student from the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology in Belgium. “It’s been fantastic. What I really like is that there is no distance between us and the instructors. We can ask whatever question we want, which helps with the learning process.” Such camaraderie is a central tenet not only of Methods in Cancer Neuroscience but all .

“The next four directors of this course are probably in the lab with us right now,” says Vermeer. “They’re going to take what they’ve learned here, teach others, and keep building the field.”

There aren’t many textbooks on cancer neuroscience. (In fact, Amit edited the first, published in 2023.) But in time, the “methods” established through this course may make their way into the widely influential journal , available online through . This way, the new body of knowledge will continue to grow in both size and reach.

Written by: Nick Wurm, Communications Specialist | [email protected] | 516-367-5940