For the First Time, Cancer Stem Cells Tracked, May Inform Treatment Strategies

For the first time, researchers can trace cell lineage within a growing tumor. In this skin tumor, the cells labeled red all arose from a single stem cell.

Until now, cancer researchers haven’t been able to track what errant cancer cells have been doing in patient’s bodies, ie forming tumors. Three different groups studying tumors in mice have accomplished this. Their results support ideas that a small subset of cells drive tumor growth and that curing cancer would require eliminating these rogue cells.

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Radio-Wave Heated Nanoparticles Trigger Insulin Production in Mice

Researchers have been able to remotely activate genes inside mice, proving the concept that one day, there will be medical procedures in which patients’ genes are triggered from afar. The team led by Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular geneticist at the Rockefeller University in New York, states that in the short term, these results will lead to better tools to manipulate cells, in a non-invasive manner.

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New Drug CD47 Could Potentially Shrink and Cure All Tumors

New research points that there could be a single drug that could shrink or cure all types of cancer, whether it’s breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, or liver. The treatment uses an antibody that blocks the ‘do not eat’ signal that’s usually displayed on tumor cells and coaxes the immune system to destroy cancer cells.

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