77 posts tagged cancer stem cells

Studies of how cancer cells spread have led to a surprising discovery about the creation of cells with adult stem cell characteristics, offering potentially major implications for regenerative medicine and for cancer treatment.

THURSDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have found that normal cells and cancer cells that acquire the ability to use long dormant pathways to migrate through the body may gain properties of adult stem cells, including the ability to self-renew. read more

Immune System Discovery Offers Hope For Cancer, AIDS Patients May 12th, 2008 ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2005) — Monash University scientists have rejuvenated the immune systems of mice and humans using a common hormone.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been mentioned here before in passing – recently here, for example. But it's now time to direct particular attention to them. One reason is that a number of new experimental results concerning CSCs were presented last month at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in San Diego.

Stem Cell Researchers Demonstrate Safety Of Gene Therapy Using A... ScienceDaily Wed, 05/07/2008 - 11:00 A new study provides evidence that methods using human bone marrow-derived stem cells to deliver gene therapy to cure diseases of the blood, bone marrow and certain types of cancer do not cause the development of tumors or leukemia.

Scientists Coax Pluripotent Stem Cells from Skin to Form Heart and Blood Cells Scientists from the University of California Los Angeles claimed to have made heart and blood cells from so-called induced pluripotent stem cells. The iPS cells which are transformed skin cells is believed to have the powers of embryonic stem cells.

It is widely accepted that stem cells are involved in tissue regeneration. It is also widely accepted that (in most organs) stem cells are vanishingly rare. So: if there doesn’t happen to be a stem cell adjacent to a site of damage, how can stem cells be involved in the process of tissue repair?

Another recent development pertinent to the discussion of TOR signaling and cancer (see here), is the announcement of preclinical findings about a potential anti-cancer drug that may act against ovarian cancer. The drug works by inhibiting the mTOR signaling pathway.

As we discussed here, pluripotent stem cells have been obtained by "reporogramming" various kinds of adult cells. In one case, a set of 4 transcription factors – Oct3/4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4 – were used for the reprogramming. Another research team used a slightly different set – Oct3/4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28.

Angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, is a central process in diverse physiological and pathological situations such as healing of wounds and traumas, cardiovascular disorders, inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, and in cancer growth.