How our body’s cells work together and change in cancer

Have you ever wondered how the trillions of cells inside your body all work together like a super-organized team? Every second, your cells are busy talking, teaming up, and helping your body stay healthy. But what happens when this teamwork breaks down—like in cancer? Thanks to new research, we’re now getting a clearer picture of these tiny communities and how they change during disease (Shi, Q. et al.,(Nature, 2025)).

Building a giant map of human cells

To figure out how different cells organize and cooperate, scientists created an enormous “atlas” or map. This atlas is like a detailed guidebook of almost 2.3 million cells taken from 35 different healthy human tissues, such as the skin, heart, and even the spleen! They used a special technology called single-cell transcriptomics, which lets them see what each cell is doing, almost like peeking at a cell’s “to-do” list.

This research is part of a bigger effort to map all the cell types in the human body, like the Human Cell Atlas project. Such maps help us understand which cells are where, and what makes each tissue special (comprehensive cell atlas dataset).

Discovering cellular “teams” across the body

When the researchers looked closely, they noticed that certain groups of cells—sort of like sports teams—kept popping up together in different tissues. These “cellular modules” are made of different cell types that seem to work as a unit. For example, in the intestines, immune cells and other helpers join forces to protect us from germs.

To find these teams, the scientists developed a clever computer tool called CoVarNet. It searches for cells that often appear together and checks if they’re communicating. This teamwork happens not just in one body part, but across organs—showing that our tissues share some common teamwork strategies. If you’re curious about how scientists use health AI to spot surprising patterns in our bodies, you might enjoy reading how health AI can even reveal our diets from our blood and urine.

Aging, hormones, and the shifting cell teams

What’s really interesting is that these cell teams don’t just sit still—they change as we age or go through life events. For example, in the spleen, some immune cell teams grow bigger as people get older, while others shrink. In the breast, the cell teams shift as women go through menopause, with certain supportive cells called fibroblasts becoming less common. These changes could help scientists understand why our bodies age the way they do, and why some tissues become more vulnerable to disease.

This kind of research ties into other discoveries, like how special immune cells in the brain help control hunger—just another example of how our cells work together in surprising ways.

What happens to cell teamwork in cancer?

Unfortunately, when cancer develops, these healthy cell teams can fall apart. The researchers studied over a thousand tumor samples from 29 different types of cancer. They found that the unique, organized cell communities in healthy tissues get disrupted, and new, “cancerous” cell teams start to take over. These new teams are similar across different cancers, suggesting that tumors create their own type of ecosystem, no matter where they start in the body.

Even more fascinating, the team found that tissues right next to tumors (which look healthy) are already starting to show these cancer-like cell patterns. This could help doctors spot cancer earlier by looking for these changes.

How can this help patients?

By understanding these cell teams, doctors and scientists may one day spot diseases earlier, predict how they’ll progress, or find new ways to treat them. The cell atlas and computer tools from this study are freely available to researchers, so health AI and SlothMD-style analysis can use this information to unlock new medical insights.

This research also shows us that our bodies are like bustling cities, with groups of cells working together, responding to age, hormones, or disease. As we learn more, we’ll get better at keeping those cellular communities healthy and stopping diseases before they start.

If you enjoy learning about the amazing ways our bodies defend themselves from threats, check out whether a real-life “zombie fungus” could ever threaten humans in this fun SlothMD explainer.

The field of health AI is moving fast, and these new cell maps are just the beginning of a future where understanding our microscopic “teamwork” could keep us healthier for longer.