Meeting Review: "National Cancer Institute Conference on Cancer Bioelectricity" September 12, 2024

The Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis under the National Cancer Institute (NCI), supports research in diverse areas of cancer therapeutics such as microbial therapies, herbal remedies, and mind-body practices. Recently they have become especially interested in the emerging role of bioelectricity in cancer biology and organized a virtual meeting with some of the top scientists in the field. In this report, we overview this first-of-its-kind Naional Institute of Health (NIH)-sponsored meeting, which featured talks from 14 researchers exploring the role of bioelectricity in cancer biology. The talks covered a wide range of topics, including excellent background information on how cell collectives change their bioelectrical coupling and set points during cancer formation, new tools for reading and writing bioelectrical signatures in cells and whole organisms, how ion channels that are involved in setting those signatures affect canonical pathways in development and tumor growth, and the methods for modeling bioelectrical interactions and information transfer in cell collectives. Especially exciting were the translational technologies that were highlighted, including new diagnostics, metastasis inhibition therapies, and more efficient detection of surgical margins. The meeting concluded with funding opportunities available from the NCI Division of Cancer Biology, Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies Program, and the Small Business Innovation Research Development Center.