Tumor cells coexist with diverse immune, stromal, and neural cells in a complex microenvironment. Recent single-cell and spatial transcriptomics have uncovered specialized cell subsets that drive cancer progression, immune evasion, and treatment response. A new review synthesizes these advances, introduces the “virtual tumor” concept for AI-driven ecosystem modeling, and outlines a roadmap from fundamental tumor microenvironment (TME) biology to next-generation precision immunotherapies targeting specific cell populations and their coordinated networks.

Small intestinal cancer is a rare and poorly understood disease, partly because the molecular drivers behind it have remained unclear. Now, researchers from Japan have identified mutations in COPA—a gene involved in cellular cargo transport with no prior link to cancer—as an alternative route to small intestine tumorigenesis. Their findings may help explain how these tumors develop and could inform and advance future diagnosis and treatment strategies.

Sealed inside eggs, how can developing zebra finch chicks prepare for the world they will enter after hatching? By playing adult zebra finch ‘heat warning’ calls to chicks developing in eggs, Julia George (Clemson University, USA) and colleagues discovered that experiencing the sound directly changes the chicks’ brains by altering gene activity in the hypothalamus. This could protect the birds from heat stroke. The researchers publish their discovery in Journal of Experimental Biology.