Synthetic biology promises to revolutionize cancer care by offering permanent cures to patients with historically untreatable malignancies. Yet policy and regulation must keep pace with rapidly advancing research to allow new treatments to be made available worldwide, said Carl June during the plenary address at Science Diplomacy 2017, the third annual conference by AAAS’ Center for Science Diplomacy. The conference was held on March 29 at AAAS headquarters in Washington.

The technique accurately predicted relapse in 12 of 15 patients about eight months before their tumors were spotted by conventional imaging.