cancer stem cells

Weekly reads including MSCs & cancer stem cells

cancer stem cells

One of my main interests is the relationship between stem cells and cancer as well as what makes cancer stem cells tick. This week I’ve chosen to highlight articles on the role of stem cells in cancer plus other interesting publications. Cancer pubs related to stem cells including on cancer stem cells Identification of cancer-related …

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Weekly reads: cancer stem cells & other pubs plus a puzzler

kyu yum nature cancer stem cells niche

Cancer stem cells are one of the most interesting areas of research, intersecting the stem cell and cancer fields. Today’s weekly reads post highlights some new cancer stem cell articles along with some other interesting papers. I also note a recent weak stem cell clinical trial paper that is not a recommended read but is …

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Weekly reads: court case, cancer stem cells, skin, pluripotency, & more

chen et al fig 1e nat comm 2021 phc1

This was a busy week for me working on a grant due Friday and a bunch of other stuff including happily analyzing a bunch of data, but there were tons of interesting papers recently including on pluripotency. California stem cell clinic court case on in the background Along the way this week I was occasionally …

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What is a teratoma tumor? Research & treatment

What is a teratoma? human stem cell teratoma knoepfler lab sm

Sometimes on The Niche or while teaching students as a professor here at UC Davis School of Medicine, I’ve been asked: What is a teratoma? Not all tumors are created equal and some like teratomas are particularly unusual. Exactly what is a teratoma tumor? Teratomas are germ cell tumors. What this means is that the …

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3 Ways Stem Cells Theoretically May Help John McCain Beat Brain Tumor

John_McCain_brain-cancer-e1500667982554

I was really sad when I heard about John McCain’s diagnosis with a glioblastoma, a particularly nasty type of brain tumor that we study in my lab when it shows up in children. My own battle with prostate cancer starting almost 8 years ago might have sensitized me to this news even though I’m in …

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Can Stemcentrx thrive as a biotech killing cancer stem cells?

stemcentrx.2x519

A stem cell biotech in the news this week was one that had mostly flown under the radar previously with aim to zap cancer stem cells. Stemcentrx has a focus on killing cancer stem cells as a novel approach to treating cancer. Antonio Regalado had a nice article yesterday on the company. He reports that Stemcentrx has …

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Are glioma stem cells a path to better outcomes?

Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma and other related malignant glioma tumors including diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) are some of the most devastating of all human cancers, and glioma stem cells may contribute to the lethality. You can see an image of a glioma (the white area in the brain scan) from Wikipedia above. These brain tumors usually kill …

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Secret Not so Secret Recipe for Safer iPS cells

IPS cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, Knoepfler lab, stained for TRA-1-60, an ES cell marker., where do stem cells come from?

Just how tumorigenic are iPS cells?  The field really doesn’t know at this point. However, a steady stream of papers have raised red flag after red flag about genomic and epigenomic alterations/mutations that are linked to cancer. Of course, then there is the fact that all the genetic changes actually used to make reprogrammed cells …

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