Xinhuanet Beijing, August 14 (Liu Li) Reuters reported on the 13th that American researchers recently discovered a compound that can kill breast cancer stem cells. This finding may explain why traditional treatment methods are not effective for many breast cancer patients. In other patients, cancer cells stop growing.
According to a study published recently in the Cell magazine by Peyush Gupta, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there is a lot of evidence that stem cells are the cause of cancer recurrence. Many researchers are working on ways to kill cancer stem cells to make cancer easier to treat. The problem is that cancer stem cells are small and unstable and can easily become other types of cells, and it is difficult to kill such cells.
Can you find compounds that can selectively kill these stem cells? Gupta said that Gupta's team first invented a method in the laboratory to stabilize the cells and make them replicate. Then they experimented with 16,000 compounds and the cells to find out which compound could kill it.
By experimenting with mice, the researchers finally discovered that salinomycin is more than 100 times more potent than traditional drugs for breast cancer. According to Gupta, it is unclear whether salinomycin is the most effective way to kill breast stem cells. Compound, or is it safe to use this drug in humans?
Researchers are still unable to explain the role of cancer stem cells in the process of human tumor production, but many research groups believe that such stem cells are the cause of cancer recurrence.
MIT's Weinberger said that cancer stem cell theory is that these cells are constantly replicating themselves, which means that they can make new tumors in the body and make existing cancer treatment programs ineffective.
He said that although this treatment may be applied to humans many years later, it is undoubtedly a new attempt by humans to find cancer treatment programs.