The Subject of Stem Cells and Cancer

Consider an article that appeared under the heading of Science Journal in the Marketplace in the February 27,2004, issue of the Wall Street Journal. It highlights an ongoing breakthrough in cancer research by Sharon Begley tided Stem Cells in Tumors May Help Explain Some Cancer Mysteries. The work described experiments from the 1950s concerning the injection of various cancer cell masses back into the patient (or into mice). It was found that another cancerous mass would result only if a sufficient number of cells were injected, may be a million or more. 

The effect was ultimately thought to be due to the presence of a relatively small number of a particular kind of active cell, denoted as a stem cell. For the record, the Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology defines a stem cell as a cell, capable of both indefinite proliferation and differentiation into specialized cells, that serves as a continuous source of new cells for such tissues as blood and testes. Cancer biologist Robert Weinberg of the Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and discoverer of the first human oncogene, is quoted in the article as follows. Within a tumor mass, there is only a small population of cells that can spawn more tumor other cells in the tumor cannot.  

A conclusion to be formed is that non-stem cancerous cells do not pose a very great danger, as they die off after a few divisions. Of more significance is the fact that standard chemotherapy practices do not interfere with the metabohsm and proliferation of the cancerous stem cells, although they kill off non-stem cancerous cells. 

Another conclusion reached is that metabolic or molecular pathways as imcov-ered for non-stem cancerous cells may prove inconsequential. The problem is that of discovering or distinguishing the metabolic pathways of the cancerous stem cells. We will attempt to take a closer look at these. 

Regarding the phenomenon of bacterial infections hnilding up a resistance to antibiotics, there is the consideration that certain bacteria are more resistant than others and they tend to survive and somehow build up immunity, prohferating in the meantime. There is the idea that this represents a kind of probability manifestation. That is, given a population of bacterial specimens, some will be more vigorous and resistant than the others, a sort of survival of the fittest, the fittest being those that survive. The next question is a method to selectively kill all of these strains. For bacteria, maybe another antibiotic may be advisable, at the necessary and sufficient dosage levels and frequency. 

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