Targeting Cancer Stem Cells
The Telegraph looks at a representative initiative aimed at the targeted elimination of cancer stem cells: researchers "have found a strategy that selectively targets these cancer stem cells for destruction, successfully halting the spread of one of the deadliest cancers - melanoma - in mice. ... Not every cell in a cancer are the same. There is a population of cancer stem cells. But it has never been shown that targeting them can halt tumour growth. This is a very important study when it comes to validating this approach for future treatments ... The team took mice that were growing human tumour cells from melanoma patients, then injected the rodents with monoclonal antibodies - proteins designed only to bind with the ABCB5 protein and thus the melanoma stem cells. They found that this stimulated an immune response that killed tumour cells and significantly inhibited melanoma growth as compared with untreated mice. ... It is of course preliminary and it would be wrong to raise false hopes but many are trying to turn cancer stem cell targetting into therapy."
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/16/scicancer116.xml