Narrator: This is Science Today. The observation that inflammation can stimulate the growth of tumors and even initiate them dates back at least two thousand years. Yet, just how inflammation does this has not been very clear. University of California, San Diego pharmacology professor, Michael Karin, has been studying a pro-inflammatory protein called NF-kappa B to gain more insight.

Karin: We envisioned that it can either play a role early on in cancer development, but that it also may play a role in cancer development at the later stage, for instance by stimulating the growth of already established tumors or even contributing to metastatic growth of the cancer.

Narrator: When NF-kappa B was inhibited, tumor growth in mice was halted and a cancer-killing protein called TRAIL became more effective.

Karin: So that's the idea, that you can actually use now inflammation in combination with inhibition of NF-kappa B to actually fight against the tumor.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.