Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created “queen” cancer stem cells they say could significantly advance cancer research.
The ability to grow the cancer cells suggests that scientists may be able to produce them in large numbers for research purposes. The findings also suggest that some normal cells may be more prone to becoming tumor-initiating cancer cells and have higher potential to spread to other tissues than other cells.
The work to produce the cells was done by scientists at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and is reported in the Aug. 13 issue of Cancer Cell.
