“Latest Stem Cells News”

Stem cells could be responsible for some forms of aggressive thyroid tumors (ATC, anaplastic thyroid carcinoma). The discovery was made by a young group of biotechnologists, biologists, and doctors from the Endocrinology department of the General Hospital of the University of Palermo. In the study, published in Plos One, the researchers described a subset of tumor stem cells that were able to proliferate continuously and may be responsible for uncontrolled tumor growth. These cells are resistant to chemotherapy and explain why ATC is so highly fatal in such a short period of time. The authors of the study also discovered which specific markers thyroid stem cells express. With these observations it will soon be possible to identify tumors and target them in new therapeutic approaches. Carla Giordano, the head of the Molecular Endocrinology lab where the study was conducted said, “This discovery creates possibilities for treating not only anaplastic thyroid tumors, but also neoplastic thyroid tumors considered incurable due to their resistance to conventional therapies.”

Scientists at the FIRC (Italian Foundation for Cancer Research) Institute of Molecular Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan have revealed how to eliminate cancer stem cells, the true reason for cancer’s incurability. Researchers led by Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, Director of the Department of Experimental Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology, and Professor of general pathology at the University of Milan, have discovered how cancer stem cells become immortal.

The same oncogenes that are responsible for triggering the process of tumor formation, also impede stem cells from growing old, and allow them to maintain their ability to form new tumor tissue. Basically, early cancer ‘mother’ cells replicate slower than other cells giving them time to repair damage making them virtually immortal. This discovery was published in Nature magazine.

“Current drugs”, a note from the oncologists that worked on the project explained, “are directed at later cancer cells, the ‘daughter cell’. This discovery paves the way for a phase of cures aimed at hitting original cancer stem cells or the mother cells”. New drugs with this function are already in the clinical testing phase on human beings: “In the next 5-10 years these drugs could become available for some types of tumors”. The study was performed in collaboration with the University of Milan.