A team of clinician-scientists and scientists, led by the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) and A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) together with collaborators in Europe and South Korea, used single cell techniques to uncover a central dichotomy for colorectal cancer cells, leading to a proposed update of the classification system for the disease. These findings, published in Nature Genetics on 30 June 2022, have implications for drug development and treatment approaches in colorectal cancer.