Esophageal cancer is a prevalent and aggressive malignancy associated with a poor prognosis. Metabolomics and microbiomics have emerged as promising approaches for investigating the tumor microenvironment and monitoring dynamic changes throughout the treatment process. These methodologies facilitate the direct observation of phenotypic alterations with high sensitivity, throughput, and adaptability across diverse sample types. Microbial genomic data play a crucial role in predicting the metabolic potential of microorganisms, whereas metabolomics offers direct evidence of active metabolic pathways under specific conditions. This review presents novel insights into the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of esophageal cancer through the application of metabolomics and microbiomics. Future advancements in the integration of multi-omics data are expected to further elucidate the metabolic mechanisms and pathophysiological processes underlying esophageal cancer, thereby laying a robust scientific foundation for early diagnosis, prognostic assessment, and personalized treatment strategies.

Australia’s recent move to lower the starting age for bowel (colorectal) cancer screening from 50 down to 45 years old will mean better outcomes – but it will also increase the burden on an already struggling healthcare system, warn Flinders University researchers.

 

They predict that the expanded screening program will likely lead to an influx of younger adults who will require ongoing surveillance with regular colonoscopies, prompting the team to review current clinical guidelines for at risk individuals.

A research team from the School of Biomedical Sciences, LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, has unearthed the ancient evolutionary origins of genes critical to stem cell biology, dating back over 700 million years. Drawing on insights from evolutionary processes, this discovery reveals that tools borrowed from ancient single-celled organisms—and even recreated proteins from life’s earliest days—can transform mouse somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells capable of developing into any cell type in multicellular animals. This breakthrough challenges the longstanding belief that only animal genes possess this transformative ability, paving the way for new protein designs in novel therapies for regenerative medicine and disease studies to combat ageing and related health issues. The findings were recently published in Nature Communications.