The Notch receptor is a protein that is known to be involved in the formation and development of cancer. Until today, this receptor was known to be involved in certain types of leukaemia, but its role in solid tumours, the most common group of human cancers, was unknown. Now a team of scientists and clinicians who work at the IFOM-IEO Campus in Milan, and who are affiliated with IFOM (FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology), IEO (European Institute of Oncology) and the University of Milan, have uncovered a role for Notch in lung cancer. The study, which will soon be published in scientific journal PNAS, demonstrates that Notch is functionally altered in more than one third of lung cancers.