Friday 14 August 2009

Drug may kill cancer 'mother' cells

A major breakthrough could pave the way to wiping out cancer by targeting the deadly "mother" cells that give birth to tumours.
For the first time, scientists have identified a drug that selectively kills cancer stem cells.

Many solid tumour cancers, including breast, prostate, bowel and lung, are thought to be driven and renewed by stem cell "parents".

Like the terrifying "mother" in Ridley Scott's Alien films, cancer stem cells are elusive, highly aggressive, and hard to defeat.

And just as destroying the mother Alien prevented more of her brood threatening humanity, scientists believe tackling tumour stem cells could eradicate a cancer's source.

Cancer stem cells have always proved highly resistant to therapy agents, which is why tumours often grow back after initial treatment.

But now scientists from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Boston, Massachusetts, have found a compound that delivers a targeted knockout blow to breast cancer stem cells.

Tested in the laboratory, the drug salinomycin was 100 times more effective at destroying the stem cells than the powerful chemotherapy agent Taxol.

Injected into mice with breast cancer, salinomycin also slowed the growth of the animal's tumours, the research, published in the journal Cell, found.

Stem cells treated with the drug were less able to seed new tumours in the mice than cells treated with Taxol. The researchers believe "dozens" of other drugs with similar properties could be discovered over the next few years.














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