Nerves control everything from your heart rate to muscle movement to the fight-or-flight stress response.

“Nerves are critical to body function,” says head and neck surgeon Moran Amit, M.D., Ph.D. “It makes sense that they also play an active role in tumor biology, but until the last decade, nerves were really considered innocent bystanders to cancer.”

Amit is leading groundbreaking research into the role nerves play in...