April 23rd, 2005
Adult Stem Cells And Cancer Risk
A number of articles have seen print this week about the possible cancer risk from adult stem cells; a team has demonstrated the ability of lab-cultured adult stem cells to become cancerous after many months of cultivation. This has always been regarded as a low level potential risk, but as this BBC piece notes, "stem cell lines maintained and developed in stem cell banks over a long period of time are currently only used for research purposes. They are not transplanted into people." Still, this shows that much more research into cellular behavior would be a good thing. That understanding feeds into many different fields: regenerative medicine, cancer research and aging research amongst them.