MIT Team Creates Cancer Stem Cells

MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way in the lab to create large amounts of cancer stem cells, the cells that can initiate tumors. The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.

Re:Tag: Bioweapon?

[Otter]

There are already plenty of very effective ways to cause cancer that are a lot easier, cheaper and more easily deliverable.

Re:New biological weapon?

[DDLKermit007]

Has to be tailored to each person. At that it's highly questionable. Otherwise the body will just destroy the cells. Cancer lives by playing the game of cups, and balls with the immune system. When it finds the right way to act like it's part of the body to the immune system it's kind of a bitch to kill off. Easier to just poison someone. Plus this would require a fairly advanced lab. It takes far less, and generates allot more fear mailing an envelope with Anthrax in it to one person.

Re:New biological weapon?

[milamber3]

Not really, you would need the cells to be immunologically compatible to each person you wanted to infect. That would be harder than a large number of other ways to hurt them. On the other hand, a biological weapon could come from the method they use to turn the cells into cancer stem cells. This generally involves a gene transfer using a virus vector. That kind of virus could be used to create these types of cells inside someone. I don't think large scale virus vector weapons are currently feasible but it may be something to worry about in the future.

Re:Isn't this going in reverse?

[quinspr70c0l]

There are multiple advantages of using cancer cells in research. Stem cells are generally hard to come by. Cancerous versions of the cells tend to be tougher and grow much more rapidly enabling cell cultures to be easily shared among scientists. Normal cells tend to stop growing after they reach a certain density and form only a thing layer on a Petri dish. Cancer cells exhibit no such inhibitions. The first mammalian cells that could be cultured indefinitely were the HeLa which were cancerous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa [wikipedia.org] I would imagine that these cancerous stem cells would greatly aid stem cell research.