

Drug Compound That Kills Cancer Stem Cells Identified - hillel
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQCyVkyA3AIA

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biohacker42
If my Swiss cheese like memory doesn't fail me:

I think it was Israeli scientists who were first able to separate regular
cancer cells and stem cancer cells in the lab.

It turns out stem cancer makes regular cancer. If you implant regular into a
cancer free mouse it almost never develops cancer. But implant stem and you've
got cancer.

Further more, regular c. cells grow too fast and are thus more susceptible to
treatment then healthy cells. But stem c. cells don't, and they often survive
treatment.

And stem c. cells tend to be in the center of tumors, surrounded by and
protected by regular c. cells.

Makes you be in awe of cancer a bit a more doesn't it?

I am not impressed by promising results in mice, mice are a terrible model for
human cancer. But what I found interesting is this:

 _They then used rapid screening techniques to test 16,000 commercially
available chemical compounds._

This is a brute force search and I hope we see more of it. It can be automated
and done by machines.

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dskhatri
Bloomberg presents the research finding in a different light: the article
focuses on the fact that 1 compound out of 16000 researched was identified as
the most effective at targeting cancer stem cells. However, the main outcome
of the research, as NYTimes[1] points out, is that a new screening method has
been developed to be able to quickly identify drugs that effectively target
only the cancer stem cells. In fact, 32 chemicals were identifed as effective
at killing stem cells. Only 1 of these is an approved drug.

The NYT article is more interesting because they mention two schools of
thought among cancer researchers: on the one hand, there are researchers who
think that only the stem cells must be targeted in order to completely kill
off the cancer. They believe chemotherapy is ineffective because it kills all
types of cells but fails to completely kill all the cancer stem cells. Even if
99% of the cells are targeted, the presence of remnant stem cells may result
in the cancer returning. The other camp takes the view that it is not
sufficient to kill stem cells only.

This is just my understanding of the articles. I'm not a biologist in any way
& I'd love to read the views about the significance of these findings by
hackers more versed with the topic

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/health/research/14cancer.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/health/research/14cancer.html?hp)

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biohacker42
_However, the main outcome of the research, as NYTimes[1] points out, is that
a new screening method has been developed to be able to quickly identify
drugs..._

This is definitely a big one.

As to the question of do we only kill stem cells or both types of cells.
That's mostly an academic debate, because your doctor won't hesitate to give
you both kinds of therapy, just in case.

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jcl
The article is unspecific about what these compounds do to regular stem cells.
It would be interesting to know if the most effective compound also kills
regular stem cells, or if it somehow distinguishes between cancer and non-
cancer cells.

(What happens to tissue when you take away its stem cells, anyway? Does it
just age more rapidly? Or die off?)

