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Stem Cells At The Core of Cancer?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heart-of-the-matter dept.

davecb writes "The Globe and Mail reports that cancers have at their core a small number of stem cells, without which they cannot spread or reoccur. From the article: 'A spate of new discoveries about the basic biology of cancer is pushing researchers toward an astonishing conclusion: For decades, efforts to cure the disease may have targeted the wrong cells.' If true, the discoveries of Canadian and Italian research groups may give us a new path to selectively attack cancer."

6 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. summary by Xiph · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Anyone answering above this post have not have time to read the article, here's the summary: The article is about research into whether or not cancerous stemcells are necessary for cancer growth. It discusses (biased) that they are, and talks briefly about where in the body you'll find stem cells and what they do. then finishes of with presenting a (in my non-medical view) convincing animal study, showing that when cancer cells are injected into mice, it was predominantly the mice who were injected with cancerous stem cells which showed cancer growth, while only one mouse (in 47) injected with cancerous non-stem cells showed a growing cancer.

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  2. Possibly intuitive? by theundergroundman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the problems with the older strains of stem cells in US research is that they often caused cancer in experimental mice. Going from undifferentiated to rapidly differentiating. When you think about those results this finding makes intuitive sense but I am also not a biologist, at least not full time.

  3. fox is spinning so hard i'm dizzy by macadamia_harold · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Globe and Mail reports that cancers have at their core a small number of stem cells, without which they cannot spread or reoccur.

    So how long until we have some partisan halfwit wielding this nugget of information in his crusade against stem-cell research?

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    1. Re:fox is spinning so hard i'm dizzy by Froster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or it will work in the opposite sense. Its hard to argue against research that can cure cancer. There has been a lot of talk about the use of stem cells to treat inherited disease, but thats largely something that only those unfortunate enough to suffer from that disease would favour (or publicly advocate). Cancer on the other hand is something that everyone can relate to, and everyone knows a victim of. If you told even the most ardent Bush supporter if they are willing to do whatever they can to cure cancer, I doubt they would be willing to say no.

  4. Operation: Eradication by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Funny

    Since stem cells come from embryos, and stem cells also cause cancer, the solution is obvious.

    We must eradicate all embryos.

    (We should probably eradicate all babies while we're at it, just to be safe.)

  5. SciAm had article about this in July by tcdk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ... and luckily it's one of their rare free ones:

    Stem Cells: The Real Culprits in Cancer?

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