The Tables Are Turned on Cancer

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The Stanford University School of Medicine has decided to play a trick on cancer cells. Instead of looking at fully developed cancer cells cultivated from a patient, researchers have successfully transformed normal and healthy skin cells into cancer stem cells. The reason behind the process is to make them easier to study without having to rely on a human host to provide them. Cancer stem cells are believed to be the ones that direct cancer growth. Understanding how these cells function has long eluded scientists.

Dr Howard Chang, an assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford, believes that generating the cancer stem cells will help to propel research. While scientists and researchers at the University of Toronto discovered cancer stem cells in 1994, it wasn't until 2003 that a doctor at the University of Michigan was able to discover a cancer stem cell of a breast cancer tumour.

Scientists have long attempted to understand how cancer stem cells first originate in the human body. By creating cancer stem cells from skin tissues, scientists may finally learn how that happens, which could lead to learning how to stop it.

Scientists have long noted that biological regulators control some genes active in cancer stem cells. By experimenting, activating and deactivating various genes scientists are hoping to learn more about how they contribute to the cancerous cells. Says Dr. Chang, "Our particular interest is in using this approach to find the mechanism that turns a normal cell into a cancer stem cell."

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