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Cancer Stem Cells Treatment
There are few recent developments in search of cancer stem cells. These development state that there are few cancers which persists even after treatment and recur to give birth to new tumors. These small numbers of cells are termed as cancer stem cells. At present scientist are still not clear about the role these stem cells play in the disease, but it is for sure that they do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation. |
Looking at the damage that these cells can cause there are several research groups which are aiming to find out a method of locating and destroying these cancer stem cells.
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard are trying to utilize high throughput screening applications to locate chemicals which can mark the cancer stem cells selectively. Their accession are very rare because these cells are present in a very few number in anew tumor and hence it is hard to generate and maintain them outside a body.
Another team headed by Eric Lander at the Broad Institute and Robert Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute of late have tested chemical compounds that can successfully mark leukemia stem cells and brain cancer stem cells. They have generated a method in which a huge number of cells can resemble epithelial cancer stem cells that occur naturally. These cells can be withheld in the same condition for prolonged period of time. The most common type of cancer is the epithelial cancer which targets the skin and the inner lining of various organs of the body. Researchers have utilized epithelial breast cancer cells in bringing about a genetic transformation in these cells to accept the features of mesenchymal cells which can shape into connective tissue in the body. This study has helped in promoting growth of huge number of cells. These cells can then be cultivated in small quantities and can be screened mechanically for their reaction towards huge set of chemicals.
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Cancer Stem Cells Treatment
