Leukemia Stem Cells

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Since cancer stem cells - and the implications for future cancer therapies - seem to be the topic of the moment, I should point out this news of progress from EurekAlert!: researchers "have isolated rare cancer stem cells that cause leukemia in a mouse model of the human disease. The leukemia stem cells isolated proved to be surprisingly different from normal blood stem cells - a finding that may be good news for developing a drug that selectively targets them. ... scientists showed that they could create leukemia stem cells, which also are self-renewing, from partially committed, non-self-renewing progenitor cells. The latter are short-lived cells that can turn into several types of blood cells ... in the future we should be able to specifically target leukemia stem cells without killing normal stem cells."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/dci-sil071706.php