This news item is about: Overcoming an addiction is most often the healthy choice. But for cancer cells, their addiction to glutamine is life-giving. Turbo-charged engines capable of metastasizing in even the most difficult of conditions, cancer cells find their strength in glutamine, an amino acid important to protein metabolism and a key nutrient for the growth of cancer cells. Researchers have long believed that starvation – breaking the glutamine addiction – may be an effective strategy in the fight against some cancers, but for decades have struggled with how to accomplish this feat.