Getting to the root of cancer

The cell-sorting technology that isolated blood cancer stem cells, revolutionized the cancer research and found a basis of the link between stem cells, cancer, and cell death. Stem cells are being widely investigated in a variety of cancers such as colon, bone, cevical, lung, and prostate, and are found to be more resistant to radiation than glioblastoma cancer cells. The cancer therapy research is focused on considering cancer stem cells in the drug development process, and finding drugs that are successful at the level of tumor stem cells. The other research studies selectively demobilize cancer stem cells by disabling them to form malignant cells and exposing the brain tumor stem cells to proteins. The researchers are also studying the possible neutralization of stem cells by modulating the proteins that block or encourage transcription of genes involved in differentiation