Researchers Played Music to Cells – Aggressiveness of Laryngeal Cancer Decreased
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Researchers played music to cells - aggressiveness of laryngeal cancer decreased:
The continuous movement of the vocal cords weakens and eventually stops as laryngeal cancer progresses. Researchers have, for the first time, discovered that restoring cellular vibration reduces the aggressiveness of advanced vocal cord cancer. When cancer cells were exposed to sound-wave vibration, a protein that promotes cancer growth and severity decreased.
"What music should we play to our cells?" This question sparked a groundbreaking study on laryngeal cancer that revealed a previously unknown sensitivity of this cancer type to a targeted drug currently under development.
Laryngeal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumours of the head and neck region. The most common early symptom is hoarseness, as the cancer typically appears in the vocal cords, and their movement gradually becomes impaired as the disease develops. Movement decreases because the vocal cord tissue stiffens and the cancer invades surrounding tissue.
[...] Researchers have long known that increased tissue stiffness promotes cancer malignancy in non-moving tissues such as breast, liver, and pancreatic cancers, because cells sense and respond to the physical properties of their environment. The sensitivity of cells to external forces led researchers to take an interest in laryngeal cancer, which develops in constantly moving tissue.
"We wondered whether 'movement could be medicine' and whether tissue stiffening and immobilisation contribute to cancer development," says Academy Professor Johanna Ivaska, Director of the BarrierForce Centre of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Finland.
"We developed this idea together with BarrierForce Vice Director Professor Sara Wickstrom and her research group. With their help, we used a bioreactor in which cells were grown on a vibrating membrane placed on top of a loudspeaker," explains Ivaska.
[...] The researchers' predictions proved correct: exposing cancer cells to vibration-mimicking vocal cord movement reduced their malignancy. One of the observed changes was a decrease in a protein called YAP in the cells.
Jasmin Kaivola notes that the study is entirely groundbreaking because the biomechanics of developing cancers have not previously been studied in moving tissues. She says it would be interesting to investigate whether the mechanism they identified has prognostic value in other cancers of moving tissues, such as lung cancer.
"We are excited about the results and believe that our findings may encourage developers of these drugs to explore their suitability for this difficult-to-treat cancer with a poor prognosis," says Kaivola.
Journal Reference: Kaivola, J., Punovuori, K., Chastney, M.R. et al. Restoring the tumour mechanophenotype of vocal fold cancer reverts its malignant properties. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02473-7
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