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Stem Cells Root Cause Of All Cancers?


RandyW

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Stem Cells Root Cause Of All Cancers?

Related News: Stem Cells and Cancer

Well, if there was ever a reason to write that article on what the advantage of stem cell research is .. here is a classic example.

Researcher Robert Weinberg, a cancer geneticist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts is pointing out that they believe the root of every cancerous tumor, is madeup of a handful of aberrant stem cells.

This concept could help explain why tumors can regenerate even after being almost completely destroyed. Furthermore, this could also point medical researchers towards developing new strategies in anticancer drugs and treatments. Effectively, new drugs should be selected based on their lethality to cancer stem cells. Simply shrinking tumors would no longer be seen as effective if these theories prove to be true.

"I think this is one of the most interesting developments in cancer research in the last five years," says Weinberg. "I think more and more people are accepting it and evidence is accumulating that cancer stem cells exist in a variety of tumors."

The idea that cancer cells possess the same properties as stem cells is not new. However, it has only recently been possible for biologists to identify stem cells and their presence in tumors.

In 2003, Dr. Michael Clarke, now of Stanford, discovered cancer stem cells in breast tumors. However, despite the idea that all tumor cells could cause the spread of cancer, it turned out that only a handful were able to seed new cancers. These cells resembled stem cells in their ability to proliferate and generate mature cells.

Read More at New York Times - Stem Cells May Be Key to Cancer

Additionally, this article includes a video of Nicholas Wade discussing stem cells as a whole.

A Podcast of this stem cell article here

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