A study to be published in the journal Cancer Cell discovered the mechanism behind the growth of neuroblastoma, a type of cancer of the nervous system, found in very young children. During normal development, neural crest cells stop dividing and turn into different types of mature nerve cells. However, in neuroblastoma, this does not happen and the cells simply keep dividing, forming a tumor. Researchers found that high levels of a gene called N-Myc disrupt the control of cell division and differentiation, and that an enzyme called Aurora A binds to and stabilizes N-Myc. This ability of Aurora A contributes to the development of neuroblastoma by interfering with the maturation of developing nerve cells.