Woman researching cancer cellsA new study focusing on the behaviour of bowel cancer cells has found key information that helps us to understand how the disease spreads.Scientists have long known that some cancer cells, like skin cancer, can “shapeshift,” making treatment harder.But recent research from the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre and the University of Edinburgh has found that “cellular plasticity,” or the ability of some cells to lose their shape and assume that of other cells, is a key step in certain cases of aggressive bowel cancer.This change is a “major driver of metastatic progression,” or an important part of how the cancer spreads, the research, published in the scientific journal Nature, reads. Bowel cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, is becoming more common among younger people worldwide; England has seen an especially steep rise, according to a paper published in